COVID-19 & the Authoritarian Bent
“Until seventy million people end up dead, comparing social sentiment to Nazism will always seem stupid to me.”
“So, you’re saying you’ll start paying attention once it’s too late.”
Today I want to discuss a Rasmussen poll that for many should be eye-opening and a bit alarming. The poll questioned both Democrats and Republicans on how far they’d go to punish people who choose not to receive a COVID-19 vaccine and those who simply question the efficacy of the vaccines themselves. Before I continue much further, I’d like to give you time to peruse the findings. I’ve posted all the important information from the poll below. Take a look for yourself.
– Fifty-eight percent (58%) of voters would oppose a proposal for federal or state governments to fine Americans who choose not to get a COVID-19 vaccine. However, 55% of Democratic voters would support such a proposal, compared to just 19% of Republicans and 25% of unaffiliated voters.
– Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democratic voters would favor a government policy requiring that citizens remain confined to their homes at all times, except for emergencies, if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Such a proposal is opposed by 61% of all likely voters, including 79% of Republicans and 71% of unaffiliated voters.
– Nearly half (48%) of Democratic voters think federal and state governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications. Only 27% of all voters – including just 14% of Republicans and 18% of unaffiliated voters – favor criminal punishment of vaccine critics.
– Forty-five percent (45%) of Democrats would favor governments requiring citizens to temporarily live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Such a policy would be opposed by a strong majority (71%) of all voters, with 78% of Republicans and 64% of unaffiliated voters saying they would Strongly Oppose putting the unvaccinated in “designated facilities.”
– While about two-thirds (66%) of likely voters would be against governments using digital devices to track unvaccinated people to ensure that they are quarantined or socially distancing from others, 47% of Democrats favor a government tracking program for those who won’t get the COVID-19 vaccine.
How far are Democrats willing to go in punishing the unvaccinated? Twenty-nine percent (29%) of Democratic voters would support temporarily removing parents’ custody of their children if parents refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine. That’s much more than twice the level of support in the rest of the electorate – seven percent (7%) of Republicans and 11% of unaffiliated voters – for such a policy.
This Rasmussen article deserves much more coverage than it’s getting. Of course it was covered by conservative media and a couple independent center-left media organizations for a day, but this information is nothing we can afford to forget. Consider this: Are you unvaccinated against COVID-19? Do you have loved ones who are unvaccinated? How does it make you feel to know there are tens of millions of people in the United States (and many more worldwide) who would like to see you or your loved ones held prisoner in a camp because of the choice not to be vaccinated against a virus that, according to Johns Hopkins, has a mortality rate (as of January 30, 2022) of 1.2%? And for those of us under sixty-five years of age, that percentage drops dramatically. And this is just weeks after CDC Director Rochelle Walensky admitted that COVID numbers are at a minimum 40% exaggerated. Walensky makes it clear that this applies directly to the Omicron variant, but clearly these numbers have been inflated since the beginning, a big reason being the financial incentives for hospitals to list COVID deaths. Furthermore, recent data from the CDC confirms that natural immunity is around six times better than vaccine immunity, and other studies have shown that the vaccinated spread COVID at around the same rate as the unvaccinated.
Knowing all of this, I’m sorry, but I must ask: For the majority of us who are not at high-risk of being hospitalized from COVID, what exactly is the point of being forced into vaccination? What exactly are these vaccines doing for us?
Oops, did I just buy myself some jail time?
Currently, I’m not vaccinated against COVID, which makes all of this a hard pill to swallow. And sure, it’s not a good feeling knowing that some of the locals you push your cart past while grocery shopping would like to see you locked away, but what’s worse is knowing that some of your friends and family likely subscribe to these authoritarian viewpoints. I’ve had immediate family, who are well aware of my vaccination status, say to my face that I shouldn’t be allowed to use a hospital. In other words, if I get sick or injured, I should just risk dying by staying at home. How does one reckon with that? Well…I’m still trying to figure it out. But one thing’s clear: I will likely never view society or the varying communities I belong to the same way again. And trust me, there are no circumstances where I’d rather have the truth hidden from me, but this one…this one hurts.
The quoted dialogue that starts this article is part of a conversation I had with another in my social circle, and it’s not the first time we’d discussed Democratic sentiment and mandate overreach. No matter how much data I presented, no matter how much abhorrence I showed him that many people harbor for the unvaccinated—such as children calling for their imprisonment while being cheered on by a TV-studio audience and an LA Times article openly celebrating the death of the unvaccinated—he remained fairly indifferent and naive it could escalate further. It’s this kind of naivete that I believe makes up most people, and I find it just as terrifying as the extremists who are willing to carry out such stonehearted punishments in the face of the actual science. But it’s more than just naivete—it’s also self-preservation, maybe even largely unconscious self-preservation. It’s the looking away from harm done to another so that the mob’s sights aren’t set on you, the mental jumping through of hoops to justify one’s cowardice and compliance. People ignore the danger that’s so plainly in front of their face, and as the danger ramps up—as those grains of sand begin to form mountains—they make excuses to continue ignoring it, and they will not stop ignoring it until that very danger comes for them—until it’s too late.
Call me a pessimist, but if the unvaccinated started being executed, I have no doubt that nothing would change. In fact, it would probably become a public spectacle. Crowds of people would flock to the center of town to watch it—to cheer it on. And those indifferent ones, those naive ones? They’d hide at home and pretend like everything was normal—that surely it wouldn’t escalate to such a degree that they’d be the focus of the witch hunt. But of course they would, eventually. It’d start with the unvaccinated. From there, the mob would come after those who are vaccinated but oppose mandates. From there, the mob would target anyone who’s just a little late getting their tri-yearly booster shots. And from there, the mob would come for anyone who stays home and doesn’t join them to watch the vile witches being burnt at the stake in the center of town.
Does that seem extreme to you? Well, consider this: We’re already seeing the unvaccinated ostracized from social life as they’re being deprived of their livelihoods. We’re already seeing the unvaccinated demonized publicly nearly every day in the media and by politicians. Last year Australia went on a highly publicized week-long manhunt for a citizen whose crime was not quarantining after testing positive for COVID. When he was finally captured—apparently by an entire SWAT team—it was greatly celebrated by the public. Next, consider how early treatment is being utterly ignored. Worse yet, some treatments shown to be effective have been purposely restricted in favor of less efficacious medications. Knowing this, we could make an argument that the unvaccinated are already being executed—and it’s celebrated publicly by the hundreds of news articles that are written for the sole purpose of ridiculing and bragging about the death of “anti-vaxxers,” another inexplicit pejorative peddled by the left to gaslight and divide the masses.
And again, all of this for what? Scientifically, it makes zero sense. Which means the mob’s vitriol and conceivable violence aren’t about the data—this isn’t about the truth, no matter how much the vaccine and science zealots swear it is. There’s something much more perverse going on, a domination of the lizard brain.
So, let’s dive into how one’s lizard brain might be awakened (or how one’s monkey brain might be shut down), how one might come to the conclusion that imprisoning someone for questioning a vaccine or locking parents away and stripping their children from them for not having their body injected with an untested and largely unnecessary medical procedure is a good idea.
Conditioning
“The act or process of training a person or animal to do something or to behave in a certain way in a particular situation.”
The conditioning is strong with this one. Where to even begin? Family > friends > learning institutions > pop culture > politicians > corporate press. From infant to adolescent to adulthood, it seems that if we’re not wary and questioning of the many competing influences in our lives, there’s a huge chance somewhere along the line we’ll get swept away within another’s ideology. To remain on point with our current topic, let’s focus on politicians and the corporate press.
The media and most of our elected officials have been fervently underreporting or straight up lying about early COVID treatments. Within the last couple years, thousands of studies have been released from around the world, many showing time after time that we do indeed have medications that work for those who begin treatment early. But with discussions around these medications being hidden from the public and constantly censored, and with some medications being directly stigmatized as “horse dewormer” and “bleach,” people have found themselves either confused by their efficacy or adamantly against their use at all. Left-wing politicians, celebrities, and news media, with the help of Big Tech, have banded together to condition—to groom—their audience. And it’s working to a staggering degree. This is perhaps the biggest warning sign that George Orwell’s 1984 spelled out for us, the unavoidable peril that arises when the state, the press, the entertainment industry, and our biggest corporations all work together to force one way of thinking down our throats. This is where most of the unvaccinated hate is coming from—the uninformed and purposely misinformed. The conditioned, forged from the malleability of unbridled fear. The Tin Men missing a heart.
The media is, in my opinion, the biggest culprit here. The information they decide we’re allowed to consume is what forms our thoughts around what’s going on in society and the world at large. The media is where politicians derive their talking points. Then decisions are made, laws are enacted, based on the information the lawmakers are digesting. Once the press decides to put political bias above truth—and begin to race-bait us or profess their vaccine fanaticism, for instance, as they have been—the ruination that follows cannot be understated. That is why it’s the media’s job to walk a very thin line, lest they end up with blood on their hands. And I’d argue that right now their hands are stained a shade of demonic red. Though the media was never perfect, it once had a responsibility to be fairly credible, but that day is long gone. Ninety-five percent of news organizations today are run by children, zealots, and imbeciles. Most of what passes for news today are opinion pieces hidden within the bloated corpses of information. It’s as if every rag in existence has learned from Weekly World News, it’s just that they’ve replaced Bat Boy with [name of thing to be feared for political reasons] to make their words seem more earnest.
Perhaps I’m getting a bit hotheaded and beginning to veer off course. And perhaps a good editor would cut this entire Conditioning section. Instead, I’m going to add an Inborn section and wrap up. My apologies.
Inborn
“Present from or as if from birth.”
When I was a very young child, not even old enough for kindergarten, if anyone said something to me that I felt was inaccurate, or they if started picking on me, I’d yell the word “foul” over and over again at the top of my lungs. My mother likes to remind me of this. Looking back, nothing has changed. I’ve done the same thing all my life, it’s just that as I grew older I stockpiled a bigger arsenal of words to use at my disposal, or to scream failingly into the abyss it seems, considering the scant amount of people willing to listen. Where I learned the word “foul” and why it was the word I chose to use in situations where others were being rude or insincere, I wish I knew. I’m assuming I must have seen referees for some sport yelling the word at players who did something wrong. The point is, it seems to me, that some people are simply born with an allergic reaction to bullshit.
I mention this because while I’d love to blame the media for all the planet’s problems, there are a couple chicken-and-egg questions here: Is the media lying on purpose, or are they simply acting upon their own conditioning? And for those who succumb to conditioning, are they being conditioned against their will or is falling to conditioning an inborn part of their human nature? This stubborn refusal to consider a different outlook, this self-preservation of ego, how do we overcome it? Not just overcome it within others, but within ourselves as well. I ask these questions because I have had many a conversation with family, friends, and strangers on social media where no matter how many facts I back up with logic, patience, and web links—no matter how much data I display before them—there seems to be a wall that simply cannot be broken down. It is currently one of the most frustrating elements in my life, the realization that I cannot connect with far too many humans, especially loved ones. Because I connect through the search for truth—not agreeing, mind you—but honest conversation and consideration in the search for truth. I also connect through disagreement, and have with plenty of people over the years, but when I’m having a conversation with another who seems to be living in a totally distant reality where opposing “facts” must exist at the same time and cannot be restructured—where no foundation can be established upon which a relationship can be built—that’s where the connection is broken. I don’t want to rehash this too much because I’ve already written about it in a previous article, but…getting back on topic, how does one connect with an interlocutor that would like to see you imprisoned, and likely dead, based on a false reality? I don’t think we can pull a Daryl Davis and dialogue our way into comradery here. Not when someone believes you’re a carrier of disease that could kill if you get too close.
I suppose the lizard brain is always there, inborn, dormant to a degree until an experience wakes it up. But it’s my belief that as it sleeps, when it’s not watching, we can participate in activities that strengthen our monkey brain and keep the lizard at bay. Not that the lizard brain has no value, but we need to get it under control, to be its master instead of the other way around. To do that, we must voluntarily seek new experiences. With regard to brain training, we can study philosophy, meditate, practice talking to those we disagree with, consume content containing ideas we may disagree with, set time aside to think about something important, set time aside to think about why we do what we do—every action, every thought—figure out what drives us and what implications it may have on others and ourselves. Ask yourself what kind of person you truly are. What are your values? How do you want to be treated? How do you treat others? In what way should you act to ensure your deathbed regrets are at a tolerable minimum?
If you want to see people who are unvaccinated against COVID punished in obscene ways, and yet you know little of the actual data, whether due to indifference or laziness—and I use the word “laziness” because there’s no reason to be both impassioned and ill-informed on a subject—and have not explored why one might choose to avoid these current vaccines, ask yourself what kind of role you’re playing in the pandemic. Could you be acting cruel? Will you go down on the right side of history?
Unfortunately, it seems we’ve no choice but to rely on the media and our elected officials to rein in all of this animosity. What we require is powerful, honest, wide-reaching messages of common sense that evoke a sense of serenity. This hostility and insanity need to be redirected, perhaps in some kind of…mass formation lucidity. And it might just be that you and I need to start our own news organization or run for office ourselves in order to heave this sinking ship back above the tumultuous waters. Lord knows I’ve been heavily considering it.
I understand I’ve left some open questions in this article with regard to conditioned versus inborn traits. Could I dig a bit further into them? Sure, but I’d rather sit on it for now. Consider it homework, something for us to think about and discuss at a later date.
That’ll do it for now. Stay safe out there.