Biggest casualty of COVID? Personal Freedoms

The psychological devastation caused by teaching children to fear their own hands, other people, the air they breathe and that their very presence poses a lethal threat to others is but one of the many casualties of COVID.

By

Dr. Joseph Mercola

Story at-a-glance:

While the casualties of government-imposed COVID-19 countermeasures are manifold, the biggest and most tragic of them all is the loss of individual freedoms.

We either choose freedom, or we choose to live under authoritarian rule. Even if restrictions are lifted, public attitude can place freedom on shaky ground, as public acceptance of overreach will allow for the same to occur again and again at a moment’s notice.

The freedom to interact with other human beings is a crucial, most basic human need.

The inevitabilities of life — which include uncertainty, moment-to-moment risk and the surety of death — demand that we not require people to cease living in order to “save” others from the ramifications of ill health.

The answer, if we really want to protect the masses, is to educate and promote healthy living at all stages of life. Improving your health through a healthy lifestyle, sunshine, fresh air and real food, is the best way to protect the most people.

While the casualties of government-imposed COVID-19 countermeasures are manifold, the biggest and most tragic of them all is the loss of individual freedoms. As noted by Jonathan Sumption in his February 15, 2021, Telegraph commentary:

“What makes us a free society is that, although the state has vast powers, there are conventional limits on what it can do with them. The limits are conventional because they do not depend on our laws but on our attitudes.

“There are islands of human life which are our own, a personal space into which the state should not intrude without some altogether exceptional justification.

“Liberal democracy breaks down when frightened majorities demand mass coercion of their fellow citizens, and call for our personal spaces to be invaded. These demands are invariably based on what people conceive to be the public good. They all assert that despotism is in the public interest.”

Also Read: CDC ignores inquiry into increasing number of deaths, injuries reported after COVID vaccines

A fragile freedom

As Sumption points out, “We cannot switch in and out of totalitarianism at will.” We either choose freedom, or we choose to live under authoritarian rule. Even if (and that’s a big if, at this point) restrictions are lifted, public attitude can place freedom on shaky ground, as public acceptance of overreach will allow for the same to occur again and again at a moment’s notice.

This is a serious problem, as there will always be other epidemics and pandemics. There is always the threat of terrorism and climate change. There will always be a public health calamity, be it obesity or diabetes, that can be used as justification for government intrusion into our private lives.

“A threshold has now been crossed,” Sumption writes. “A big taboo has gone. Other governments will say that the only question that matters is whether it works and whether they can ‘get away with it’ … We already have a striking example. The vaccine, which was supposed to make the lockdown unnecessary, has become a reason for keeping it in force …

“Infections, hospitalizations and deaths are plunging, but millions who are at virtually no risk are being kept in house imprisonment. This is being done mainly because a selective regime of controls would be too difficult for the state to enforce. Coercion quickly becomes an object in itself.”

Personal liberty is worth fighting for

Personal liberty, as Sumption points out, is critically important, and perhaps most important of all, for our mental and physical health, is the freedom to interact with other human beings. It is an absolutely crucial and most basic of human needs. Infants robbed of physical interaction fail to thrive and are at increased risk of death.

But children, adolescents, adults and the elderly have no lesser need for it. We may tolerate it for longer without marked ill effect, but over time, it takes its toll on health, emotional stability and longevity. The fact that we’re allowing government to ban human interaction is a dire sign of a society at the brink of self-destruction.

“I do not doubt that there are extreme situations in which oppressive controls over our daily lives may be necessary and justified,” Sumption writes.

An epidemic of Ebola, with a death rate of 50%, for example, might qualify. However, COVID-19 is nowhere near that serious a threat. As noted by Sumption, COVID-19 “is well within the range of perils which we have always had to live with, and always will.”

Data show the overall noninstitutionalized infection fatality ratio is 0.26%. People under the age of 40 have a mere 0.01% risk of dying from the infection. The vast majority that test positive for SARS-CoV-2 have no symptoms at all, and most do not get seriously ill.

We must relearn to accept the inevitabilities of life

What’s more, the average age of death from COVID-19 is somewhere between 76.9, according to one study, and 82, according to U.K. government data cited by Sumption.

Either way, this is right around the average age of death from any cause anyway, and therefore not an outrageous threat to public health. Yet, the public willingly relinquishes the freedom to live a normal life, somehow oddly convinced that by trading in their freedom, people at the end of their life will be spared the pain of death. They won’t. None of us will.

The inevitabilities of life — which include uncertainty, moment-to-moment risk and the surety of death — demand that we not require people to cease living in order to “save” others from the ramifications of ill health, regardless of their age. It’s as inhumane as it is illogical.

Rather, the answer, if we really want to protect the masses, is to educate and promote healthy living at all stages of life. Improving your health through a healthy lifestyle, sunshine, fresh air and real food, is the best way to protect the most people. Quarantining and shunning human interaction are probably the worst things you can do for yourself and society at large.

And let’s not go down the road of all the psychological devastation caused by teaching children to fear their own hands, other people, the air they breathe, and that their very presence poses a lethal threat to others.

The press has become an instrument of control

Historically, the press has been viewed as a crucial instrument for a well-informed public, and thus supportive of a free and democratically-run society. Indeed, this is why journalists and news outlets were known as “the Fourth Estate.” It was an acknowledgement of their societal influence. To be effective, the press had to develop a certain amount of public trust. Today, trust in mainstream media has dramatically eroded, and for good reason.

Time and again, reporters and entire news outlets have been caught peddling fake news, and when the press misleads rather than informs the public of the facts, they become tools for tyranny. Their viewers become more ignorant by the day rather than more informed, and thus more easily controlled and manipulated.

In a recent substack article, independent journalist Matt Taibbi addresses the attempt by UCLA professor and co-leader of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, Sarah Roberts, to shame readers away from substack. “Substack is a dangerous direct threat to traditional news media,” Roberts tweeted.

According to her half-baked reasoning, journalists who leave mainstream newsrooms for substack and other independent portals are taking unfair advantage of the trust they earned while gainfully employed within the Fourth Estate. Then, once on their own, they can print whatever they want without having to go through the onerous chore of fact checking and other standard checks and balances.

“To imply that trust is a thing that can only be conferred by a mainstream newsroom is beyond insulting, especially since mainstream news organizations already long ago started to become infamous for betraying exactly those hallowed ‘norms’ to which Roberts refers,” Taibbi writes.

“Why did a source like former NSA contractor Edward Snowden choose to come forward to Glenn Greenwald in particular? He surely wasn’t bothered by the fact that Glenn didn’t come up through the ranks of a paper like the New York Times or Washington Post.

“The answer connects to one of the primary reasons audiences are moving to places like Substack: the perception that traditional news outlets have become tools of the very corporate and political interests they’re supposed to be overseeing.

“Roberts complains about lines between opinion and reporting being blurred at Substack (an absurd comment on its own, but that’s a separate issue), but the ‘blurring’ problem at those other organizations is far more severe. Are newspapers like the New York Times checks on power, or agents of it?”

A century of controlled media

As detailed in “Reuters and BBC Caught Taking Money for Propaganda Campaign,” infiltration and manipulation of the media has been a routine occurrence since 1915, when J.P. Morgan interests, including the steel and shipbuilding industries, purchased editorial control of 25 of the most influential newspapers, thereby allowing them to control news about military preparedness, financial policies and other stories deemed crucial to their private and corporate interests.

Then, in 1948, the CIA launched Operation Mockingbird, a clandestine media infiltration campaign that allowed the agency to control and inject its own propaganda into the mainstream press. Today, several decades later, it’s clear that Operation Mockingbird never ceased. As noted by Taibbi:

“The major ‘traditional’ cable networks, as well as many of the bigger daily newspapers, have for years now been engaged in mad hiring sprees of ex-spooks, putting whole nests of known perjurers and Langley goons on their payrolls as contributors, where they regularly provide ‘commentary’ on news stories in which they themselves have involvement.”

The modern propaganda machine also includes Big Tech, which allows for previously unthinkable information control through automated censorship across a much broader spectrum of sources.

Literally overnight, an individual or company involved in the dissemination of truthful information that goes against the status quo can have their website shadow banned by search engines, their social media accounts eliminated, their web hosting and email services canceled and their online payment systems shut down. From one day to the next, you, your thoughts, opinions and all your hard work can be effectively erased.

Political power brokers call for massive censoring

We’re now even seeing politicians starting to throw their weight around, demanding censoring of political opponents and news outlets that fail to properly toe the political line.

U.S. House Democrats from California — Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney — went so far as to send a letter to a dozen cable, satellite and streaming TV companies, basically telling them to censor or remove Fox News, Newsmax and OANN. As noted by Glenn Greenwald in an article on the rapid escalation of government calls for censorship:

“Democrats’ justification for silencing their adversaries online and in media — ‘They are spreading fake news and inciting extremism’ — is what despots everywhere say … Since when is it the role of the U.S. Government to arbitrate and enforce precepts of ‘journalistic integrity?’

“Unless you believe in the right of the government to regulate and control what the press says — a power which the First Amendment explicitly prohibits — how can anyone be comfortable with members of Congress arrogating unto themselves the power to dictate what media outlets are permitted to report and control how they discuss and analyze the news of the day?”

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has strongly denounced the Democrats’ actions, calling it a “marked departure from First Amendment norms,” adding that the demands are “a chilling transgression of the free speech rights that every media outlet in this country enjoys … No government official has any business inquiring about the ‘moral principles’ that guide a private entity’s decision about what news to carry.”

To what aim control?

It’s important to realize that authoritarian dictators are not, in fact, trying to help you. They’re trying to change you. Censorship does not protect the public. It’s a control mechanism, as you are unlikely to rebel against an injustice that you don’t even know exists, or if you know about it, your understanding of the problem is diametrically opposed to the truth; hence, you’ll support a “solution” that will perpetuate or deepen the problem.

At an even deeper level, censorship and information suppression is an effort to alter your cognitive faculties, because how do you even define people and things that you are not allowed to criticize? As noted by Taibbi, Big Tech and media are tools for politicians, corporations and the intelligence industry, the interests of which are frequently diametrically opposed to that of the people.

Chemical companies cannot sell their toxic wares if an informed public shuns them. The fake food industry cannot flourish if the public understands the basics of health. Technocracy cannot be implemented if an informed public opposes the agenda, and so on.

What we see clearer than ever these days, is the schism in journalism where the old-school norms of gathering data and then delivering it to the audience and allowing them to make up their own minds as to whether it’s good or bad has been replaced by subjective interpretation of the data.

Essentially, most mainstream reporters now tell you how to think about a given topic. They even tell us how to think about people who refuse to think the way they’re instructed to think. That way, the public ends up doing the dirty work of censoring, canceling and dehumanizing the undesirables for them.

Rule through medicine

While the rise of dictatorships has historically involved the use of armed forces to subdue an unruly public, the budding dictatorship of today relies heavily on weaponized medicine and the control of information. If you’ve taken the time to familiarize yourself with the concept of technocracy, which has a distinct transhumanist component to it, you will see why this makes perfect sense and was, in fact, entirely predictable.

By tying the issue of health care into the digital surveillance apparatus, you end up with a very robust platform for automated mass control. The use of fear also works well in this scenario, since most are keen to stay alive and don’t want their loved ones to die. So, they fall for lies like “we have to shut down the world and sequester indoors for months on end or else we all die.”

A leading figure in this medical dictatorship scheme is Bill Gates, who now wields a dominating influence over not just Big Tech but also global health policy, agriculture and food policy (including biopiracy and fake food), weather modification and other climate technologies, surveillance, education and media. As reported by The GrayZone:

“Beyond the public relations bonanza about Gates lies a disturbing history that should raise concerns about whether his foundation’s plans for resolving the pandemic will benefit the global public as much as it expands and entrenches its power over international institutions.

“The Gates Foundation has already effectively privatized the international body charged with creating health policy, transforming it into a vehicle for corporate dominance. It has facilitated the dumping of toxic products onto the people of the Global South, and even used the world’s poor as guinea pigs for drug experiments.

“The Gates Foundation’s influence over public health policy is practically contingent on ensuring that safety regulations and other government functions are weak enough to be circumvented … Strong evidence suggests that the Gates Foundation functions as a Trojan horse for Western corporations, which of course have no goal greater than an increased bottom line.”

Indeed, as reviewed in “Bill Gates — Most Dangerous Philanthropist in Modern History?” Gates donates billions to private companies, and is invested in the very products and businesses he donates money to and otherwise promotes as solutions to the world’s problems, be they hunger, disease, pandemic viruses or climate change.

As suggested by The GrayZone, Gates’ global health empire is more about building an empire for himself and his technocrat cronies than promoting public health.

The Great Reset — a plan to capitalize on COVID-19 pandemic

For a time, there was so much uncertainty about SARS-CoV-2 and the infection it causes, you’re forgiven if you opted to err on the side of caution. Now, however, a full year later, it’s become obvious that this pandemic was never as serious as portrayed by the media, and that it is being used (whether preplanned or not) as a convenient vehicle for a radical overhaul of just about every aspect of life. And not for the better.

In a recent report, independent journalist Johnny Vedmore delved into the professional history and personal background Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, who wrote the books “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” (2016), “Shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution” (2018) and “COVID-19: The Great Reset,” thereby cementing his role as a leading figurehead for the modern technocracy movement. Vedmore writes:

“As the driving force behind the World Economic Forum … Schwab has courted heads of state, leading business executives, and the elite of academic and scientific circles into the Davos fold for over 50 years.

“More recently, he has also courted the ire of many due to his more recent role as the frontman of the Great Reset, a sweeping effort to remake civilization globally for the express benefit of the elite of the World Economic Forum and their allies …

“Like many prominent frontmen for elite-sponsored agendas, the online record of Schwab has been well-sanitized, making it difficult to come across information on his early history as well as information on his family.

“Yet, having been born in Ravensburg, Germany in 1938, many have speculated in recent months that Schwab’s family may have had some tie to Axis war efforts, ties that, if exposed, could threaten the reputation of the World Economic Forum and bring unwanted scrutiny to its professed missions and motives …

“Digging even deeper into his activities, it becomes clear that Schwab’s real role has long been to ‘shape global, regional and industry agendas’ of the present in order to ensure the continuity of larger, much older agendas that came into disrepute after World War II, not just nuclear technology, but also eugenics-influenced population control policies …

“Is Klaus Schwab trying to create the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or is he trying to create the Fourth Reich?”

Is depopulation part of the agenda?

Gates’ family history is also heavy on eugenics, as is the Club of Rome’s agenda, another technocratic power center. The United Nation’s Agenda 21 also hints at the need for a dramatic reduction in population size in the coming decade.

The idea that eugenics might make a comeback may seem like a remote possibility, but considering the history of using vaccinations to secretly inhibit fertility in native populations, it would be naïve to dismiss the possibility out of hand. As reported in a 2014 paper written by researchers at the University of Louisiana and the University of British Columbia:

“Published research shows that by 1976 WHO researchers had conjugated tetanus toxoid (TT) with human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) producing a ‘birth-control’ vaccine.

“Conjugating TT with hCG causes pregnancy hormones to be attacked by the immune system. Expected results are abortions in females already pregnant and/or infertility in recipients not yet impregnated. Repeated inoculations prolong infertility. Currently WHO researchers are working on more potent anti-fertility vaccines using recombinant DNA.

“WHO publications show a long-range purpose to reduce population growth in unstable ‘less developed countries.’ By November 1993 Catholic publications appeared saying an abortifacient vaccine was being used as a tetanus prophylactic.

“In November 2014, the Catholic Church asserted that such a program was underway in Kenya. Three independent Nairobi accredited biochemistry laboratories tested samples from vials of the WHO tetanus vaccine being used in March 2014 and found hCG where none should be present …

“Given that hCG was found in at least half the WHO vaccine samples known by the doctors involved in administering the vaccines to have been used in Kenya, our opinion is that the Kenya ‘anti-tetanus’ campaign was reasonably called into question by the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association as a front for population growth reduction.”

Certain vaccines have also been found to cause infertility as an unexpected side effect. For example, a 2018 study published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health found that women who received HPV vaccinations suffered higher rates of infertility.

According to this study, “if 100% of females in this study had received the HPV vaccine, data suggest the number of women having ever conceived would have fallen by 2 million.” After “skeptic” critics of scientific evidence that vaccines have significant health risks publicly attacked the study, the paper was withdrawn by the publisher.

What we lose is exponentially harder to get back

Safeguarding our Constitutional rights and civil liberties against unlawful government overreach is essential. Yet many are willingly giving up freedoms that, once gone, may be difficult, if not impossible, to get back. Vaccine passports are just one example.

By showing proof that you’ve received a COVID-19 vaccine, through a digital certificate or app on your phone, the hope is that you can once again board an airplane and travel freely, attend a concert or enjoy a meal in your favorite restaurant, just like you used to.

Except, being required to present your “papers” in order to live your life isn’t actually freedom at all — it’s a loss of personal liberty that you once had, one that disappeared right before your eyes and one that’s setting the stage for even more intrusive surveillance and privacy erosion.

While government has a duty to protect the health and welfare of its citizens, this duty must be balanced against the loss of individual rights and liberties. Right now we’re facing a battle of freedom versus tyranny. Long term lockdowns are clearly not in the public’s best interest. Rather, it’s tantamount to abuse.

• Joseph Mercola is the founder of Mercola.com