Have WE THE PEOPLE been bamboozled?
"Science" has made Americans cower in their homes, skip routine medical appointments, wear suffocating masks, hold classes and book club discussions on Zoom or other online platform relying on pixels so as to see another human being's face, lose all sorts of day-to-day gregarious activities which make life worth living, cancel church services, suffer even more isolation in their Golden Years, require appointments for something as simple as getting new eyeglasses, accept an unacceptable "new normal" — and much more.
Is all of the above really necessary to ensure our good health, our very survival? Or is a wicked experiment being conducted?
From What if we’ve all been primed?:
We’re all in this together. Stay home. Stay safe. We’ll get through this. It’s our new normal.Read it all HERE.
These words have been repeated so many times, you’d think they’re used for selling the latest superfood.
They’re not selling a superfood, but is it possible they’re trying to sell us something?
[...]
What if the phrases we’ve constantly heard have shaped the way we think about our actions, the way we judge others’ actions, and the way we might accept life in the future, if it becomes different from what we’ve experienced in the past?
What if there are motivations behind all of this that aren’t pure?...
A while back, my friend Ed Bonderenka posted this comment to a different thread here at this blog:
There is an acceptance of the abuses to our sovereignty because of fear.Or, I add now, these behaviors are the result of behavioral priming. Deliberate behavioral priming with the ultimate goal of what, exactly? The noble goal of saving lives — as we've been told over and over?
People wearing masks while driving, walking alone.
It's either virtue signalling or fear.
Your thoughts?
Additional reading: New York, New Jersey and Connecticut impose 14-day quarantine on travelers from coronavirus hotspot states. Brief excerpt:
Travelers arriving to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut from regions with spiking Covid-19 infections rates will be subject to a 14-day quarantine, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday. As of Wednesday, the states that are above that level are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, Utah, Texas, he said.Read the rest HERE.
There was a time when the government encouraged Americans to take risks and whatever happened to them during their movement west, good or bad, was simply a consequence of taking one’s chances. Besides, it was clearly in the interests of government to populate young America’s western territories because it was only through human settlement that the government could control these territories and the people living within them. Fear of the plains Indians (with good reason) created a demand for more military forts to protect the settlers. Typically, the government responded by assigning infantry troops to confront the world’s greatest horsemen, which did little more than provide savages with great entertainment for around a hundred years.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it is in man’s nature to fear. “The British are coming” ... if the incident happened at all, is an example of creating fear as a means of convincing people to behave in a certain way. How different would our country be today had there not been an American Revolution? History convinces us that the revolutionary war was unnecessary. Recalling the events of the early 1800s in Haiti, many Americans lived in fear of slave uprisings leading up to the American Civil War. There were revolts among enslaved populations, but who today can really blame them? Slave owners used these mostly unfounded fears for their own purposes and the government, in organizing black regiments to fight in the war had no more regard for the welfare of Negro soldiers than did southern slave owners. There has never been a shortage of hypocrisy in the government.
Our fear of the German had us involved in two world wars; our fear of the Russians led us into a cold war that lasted fifty years; our fear of two-brain celled goat farmers led us into a Middle Eastern affair that has been going on now for more than sixty years. If fear wasn’t dished out to us through an enemy we could see, then government turned to one that we couldn’t see. Global warming, climate change, destruction of our ozone layer, running out of water, the extinction of species of plants and animals, and now we have the insidious killer virus. Fear is a useful tool in controlling human behavior; no one knows this better than politicians and bureaucrats. If we fear anything at all, if we should be “at war” with anyone, it should be the politicians and bureaucrats who, to put it bluntly, are mostly full of shit. They waste our space inside the nation’s capital, they spend our money recklessly, their motives are dishonest, and if one studies most of the really bad things that have confronted us in the past, the politicians and bureaucrats either created it or manipulated it to benefit themselves. As demonstrated more recently by the government’s ability to control 330-million people, fear works.
Actually, "The British are coming..." was now a call for the purpose of creating fear. It was a call to arms, a call to prepare to fight the coming enemy.
DeleteIt was the opposite of what we encounter today, endless calls to cower under our beds and be afraid of terrorists, Russians, Chinese, Cubans, viruses, and politicians of the party opposing the one speaking.
George Washington, our first president, held that his responsibility was making sure that our nation was free. Obama said repeatedly, "My first responsibility is to keep you safe."
The priority of safety is antithetical to the priority of freedom.
Mustang,
DeleteLiving itself is a risk! Heh.
BUMPER STICKERS:
DeleteLife is a Terminal Disease.
Living is Hazardous to You Health
To Live is to Risk.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We're only here for a little stay.
Don't worry.
Don't hurry.
Just be sure to stop
___ and enjoy the flowers
______ along the way.
Joe Biden is living proof that a corpse can not only vote Democrat in a presidential election, but run as one.
ReplyDelete];^D=
DeleteYes, DD, and IF Gropey Joe, the Hair Sniffer should get elected it ,will prove conclusively that a majority of the electorate is BRAIN DEAD.
You quoted Ed as saying about mask wearing...
ReplyDelete"It's either virtue signalling or fear."
Is it even possible that wearing masks might save thousands of lives? Are there scientists who are saying all the mask stuff is BS? Perhaps the "priming" the author speaks of in the article, happens because what we are called to do, rings true.
I don't know the answers to all of this stuff. I do know that everyone on many sides of the debate sees their side as standing up for what is good and right about America and her freedoms. Even when I may not understand the hows and why of their beliefs.
Dave,
DeleteIs it even possible that wearing masks might save thousands of lives?
That's the other side of the coin (so to speak). To that end, I included the link at the end. People in those states have been "pushing back" by not wearing masks. Now, there are serious outbreaks of the Ripley (as I call COVID-19). But we must also remember that more testing is going on, too, so the outbreak numbers could be skewed.
It has been clearly documented that wearing a mask saves lives when it is done while engaging in entertainment or pursuing other personal indulgences.
DeleteIt has also been clearly documented that NOT wearing a mask is extremely dangerous and may lead to millions of needless deaths when one is engaged in activity supporting a political candidate.
It has also been clearly documented that wearing masks serves no useful purpose when one is engaged in demonstrations AGAINST an existing institution or when one is engaged in destruction of public or private property, as such activity poses no risk of spreading disease.
I think we're about to receive some useful data as we start to count the infections picked up at all the recent gatherings. I wonder if anyone was keeping track of % mask usage at each protest?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBack logs of test are now finally being processed, new testing, and young people are testing positive, with short hospital stays.
ReplyDeleteThe news (local) said ICU Hospital floors are at 80%, then at latter news break on the radio said that ICU Hospital floors in the past have always been around 80%.
Who would of known.
It also points out that more than 70% of the beds in the ICU are occupied by people who DO NOT HAVE COVID.
DeleteSo? You expect other diseases to take a holiday?
DeleteThe real story here is, haven't they been using the lockdown period to increase ICU capacity? That was the point of this whole exercise, surely??
I think what Jayhawk might mean, Jez, is that the SIGNIFICANCE of the Wuhan-China Virus may have been greatly exaggerated.
DeleteRemember the hospital ships resident Trump arranged with remarkable speed to dock in New York and on the West coast? The hundreds of beds those ships made available were hardly used at all by China-Wuhan Virus patients. The ships were intended to care for victims of OTHER diseases, but let after a few weeks, because they were not being used.
Even though new cases appear to been on the use –– largely because of an enormous increase in TESTING which picks up many asymptomatic or extremely mild cases which might have got unnoticed an undated before massive testing began, the number of deaths has decreased dramatically..
It should be most ENCOURAGING to learn that the mortality rate is decreasing even as the increased number of diagnosed cases gets reported.
It' much too easy to test or misrepresent statistical data to suit a political agenda. Ergo, it's probbly not possible to know what is REALLY going on, because th problem has been factionalized, politicized an EXPLOITED for political purposes.
I have noticed for nearly SIXTY years that LYING with craftily-selected FACTS, FACTOIDS and CANARDS has been transformed into a fine BLACK ART by the hyper-aggressive, ever-insurgent forces of the LEFT who thrive on fomenting Anxiety, Distress, Depression, Desperation, Destabilization, and Chaos.
FYI: A while back, Jayhawk shared in a comment that he has had COVID-19. If he returns to this thread, perhaps he'll remind us of the road to recovery.
DeleteThe Infotainment Media Complex is blaring out the news that cases are reaching "apocalyptic" levels, etc, but to make this news meaningful, we also need a chart of daily deaths and daily hospitalizations.
DeleteIf 70% of ICU beds are occupied by the usual number of patients, that means that capacity has only increased by at most 43%. Substantially less than that, because I'm sure there's always some spare ICU capacity in normal operation. But even 43% would be a pretty disappointing return on the investment of shutting down the economy for 3 months.
DeleteThe significance of cv19 does not lie in the current infection rate, or the current death toll, or the current number of serious cases. Its significance lies in the rate at which it spreads. We're worried about it, not because of the current figures but because of how rapidly it can go from gentle outbreak to catastrophic flood of cases.
It is not encouraging that the mortality rate is decreasing (I must be looking at a different graph, because, for either of our nations, it isn't) because there's no indication that the mortality rate won't surge again whenever the infection rate (true, not measured) is permitted to rise. I furthest I can go in that direction is to say it is not discouraging that the measured infection rate is rising, to the extent that it is an artifact of increased testing, it is not a threat. That said, I think it's reasonable to expect that the true infection rate is rising too in response to all the crowd activity earlier this month. This will be reflected in the death rate, allowing for 2-3 weeks of lag.
"It's much too easy to test or misrepresent statistical data to suit a political agenda."
true, but it's not that much harder to learn how to spot their tricks. The main problem is the amount of discipline it takes to apply that knowledge consistently.
The internet is saturated with extremist recruiters seeking out disgruntled folks to groom. It's hard watching friends falling for bad-faith arguments and rhetorical trickery.
@ Jez
DeleteYou always present reasoned arguments and I appreciate that. There are several aspects to this discussion. The first is an issue of public health; another is how people react to the constant shifting of information we receive from government officials, which does nothing to inspire confidence in the government. We Americans can always tell when an official is lying to us because his or her lips are moving.
It is in the nature of the American people to resist authority whenever they see no rhyme or reason for it. I would hardly refer to these people as extremists; they are merely people who place a high value on their individual right to liberty and the freedom to make decisions for themselves. Hopefully, these decisions are based on a logical analysis of their understanding of the facts, and if these understandings are skewed by inaccurate or contradictory government statements, that would be a concern for us all.
We know, for example, that the death rates have been manipulated. A person who dies from stage four lung cancer, who also has Covid-19 infection, is being counted as a Covid-19 related death. It’s pure poppycock. I can’t speak for most Americans, but I can say that I deeply resent the fact that public health officials are manipulating facts. If it is true that data manipulation is all part of a scam by hospital administrators to obtain federal funding based on the number of Covid-19 patients, then you can understand why Americans would be angry and distrustful.
People die every day; we can’t get around that. They die from a myriad of causes and most deaths are not related to Covid-19. In life, death is just around the corner. Personally, I am sensitive to the issue of social propriety. I carry a mask with me when I go into a store. If most people are wearing masks, I’ll put mine on. If most people aren’t wearing masks, I leave it in my Covid-19 free pocket. But I will not stay at home, hiding under my bed, praying for deliverance. If that makes me an extremist, so be it.
Thanks mustang.
Deletere the extremism, I wasn't really thinking of anyone's cv19 reaction (I'm pretty much on the same page as you about the masks). I'm seeing a lot of extremism generally on social media, i guess the blm stuff is a trigger for it.
btw I know what you mean about counting cv19 deaths, but overall I believe the excess deaths suggest that official cv19 mortality is an under- rather than an over-estimation.
@AOW
ReplyDeleteI was feverish (temp 104+) and did not eat for a week. Appetite returned slowly and I was coughing for another two weeks. Concerned about cough, I went to clinic. I took Zithromax for four days and cough cleared up. I then had a second round of the same symptoms. Lesser intensity (temp 101) ans shorter duration. Start to finish about six weeks. It was not a big deal, and my wife either did not catch it or did so with no symptoms whatever.
@Jez
What would constitute a "catastrophic flood of cases" in your mind. A hundred million people who experienced what I did? The media is reporting the pandemic as if catching the virus is an immediate and certain death sentence. There is another approach which admits that the virus almost never kills but that we should all live forever. Neither one seems realistic to me.
The nature of the virus suggests to me that whatever the eventual outcome, a truly "catastrophic flood of cases" is one thing is simply cannot produce.
Thanks, Jayhawk!
DeleteI think it's catastrophic when a region's ICU capacity gets overwhelmed. An experience like yours is unpleasant and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but I wouldn't be unduly concerned about 100 million people going through it. But we know not everyone responds to the infection the same way you did. What I don't want is to see heart attack patients die because we couldn't be bothered to manage this outbreak sensibly. A state like Colorado has a few thousand ICU beds (the plan back in April was to increase capacity to 5000, don't know if they managed that yet), compare that to the population of a large city like Denver (over 1/2 million), you don't need a crazy number of serious cases to get into catastrophic territory. Certainly, in a scenario where Denver got up to a 20% infection rate (as on the USS Rooseveldt), I think we'd have to cross our fingers for much less than 5% of those cases requiring ICU. This doesn't seem like an outlandish scenario to me, I don't know why it seems so implausible to you that you can dismiss it out of hand.
Delete"What I don't want is to see heart attack patients die because we couldn't be bothered to manage this outbreak sensibly."
DeleteHow do we know that hasn't actually been happening for the pas three months, jez? Because, in fact, we haven't been able to manage the pandemic sensibly.
Like New York City screaming for ventilators, and then sending back thousands that it did not, in fact, need. Or sending UNS Comfort and finding out she was not needed. Or building massive "tent city" temporary hospitals in Central Park that went totally unused. All while cancelling elective surgeries and mandating that nursing homes accept known Covid cases.
How many of cancers became inoperable because they were cancelled, as it turns out unnecessarily? We don't know, do we? How many people having heart attacks and strokes did not go to the hospital because of news reports that told them to stay away because emergency rooms were being used for Covid cases only? We have no idea, do we.
I expect it has been happening. I think exceeding ICU capacity would be even worse. We have to choose the least terrible solution, unfortunately.
DeleteI got lucky no temperature but coughing that left me unaware of my surroundings for 15 minutes and the government made me work. It was. January and other than the cough not bad.
DeleteWe didnt know the virus was here
Beak,
DeleteSounds like no fun!
I haven't been sick in years, so I doubt that I've ever had the Ripley (COVID-19).
Somebody needs to explain the USS Rooseveldt to me. 5000 sailors, living in very close proximity. Sleeping in crowded crews quarters, bathing and going to the bathroom together. Eating meals while sitting with their shoulders touching. FIVE THOUSAND people, and FOUR THOUSAND of them DID NOT BECOME INFECTED. Not only that, but ONLY ONE DIED.
ReplyDeleteHow did that happen when we are told that walking around in a city, six feet apart, in the open air, eating at home, not even speaking to each other, WE WILL ALL DIE IF WE DON'T WEAR MASKS.
A sailor would know better than me, but I would guess this was a mostly young, fit cohort.
DeleteI would like to think that the US Navy is manned by "a young, fit cohort," but I live in San Diego, which is the laegest Navy port in the world and I can telly that whatever the Navy is manned by, it is most definitely not "a young, fit cohort."
DeleteCalifornia "reopened" with certain specific "triggers" that, if three or more of the eight were met, would require reestablishing the shutdown. So, four have been met but the shut down is net being reestablished because, "economic repercussions of shutdown are unsustainable." That kind of begs the question of why they were not unsustainable when the shutdown was first imposed. The governmental response to the panndemic becomes more incoherent every day.
ReplyDeleteJayhawk,
DeleteThat kind of begs the question of why they were not unsustainable when the shutdown was first imposed.
Indeed!
The economic harm from the first shut down has been horrific.
Unrelated, but too good to pass up. Unilever is discontinuing the term "whitening" on its dental care products.
ReplyDeleteJayhawk,
DeleteSheesh.
What madness!
Get behaviourially primed for lots more mob rule because, "Dammit, the emperor is wearing some Very fine DAMN clothes, and you are a racist if you don't agree!"
ReplyDelete