Two Weeks Turned Into Two Years
Much of this tyranny will continue far into the future unless we actively work to hold our leaders accountable and regain the freedoms we’ve lost along the way.
This month marks the second anniversary of “15 days to slow the spread” of Covid-19. The idea was for everyone to avoid going out in public as much as possible for roughly two weeks as a way to prevent the spread of a novel coronavirus and keep hospitals from getting overwhelmed, or as some put it, to “flatten the curve” of cases. Personally, I’ve been against the government’s attempts at coercing people into putting their lives on hold since the very beginning, but even I have to admit that done voluntarily, the concept itself made sense enough. As is usually the case when it comes to the government, however, the goalposts have been continually moved ever since.
It’s been a long two weeks.
March 2020 was when the World Health Organization (WHO) classified Covid-19 as a pandemic, and it will go down in history as the month that life changed forever. The threat of Covid-19 — especially to certain demographics of people — is still very real, and it was even more so two years ago when very little was known about the virus, but I would argue that it was never enough of a threat to humanity as a whole to justify the extreme levels of authoritarianism we’ve seen spread (almost as quickly as the virus itself) throughout the world over the last two years.
To go further, in my opinion, there is no amount of danger that could possibly justify it. Life will always come with risks, and there is no law, regulation, or mandate that can guarantee safety. Any action taken by governments or bureaucracies will inevitably come with unintended consequences that carry dangers of their own, and one of the biggest threats to humanity that we must consistently watch out for is the loss of liberty that almost always accompanies those empty promises of security.
This is evident by the fact that lockdowns, mask mandates, school closures, travel bans, and vaccine mandates have remained a part of our lives on-and-off over the past two years, despite scientific evidence showing no need for such measures, or even showing that much of the time they have harmful effects. While much of the lockdowns and mandates have, for now, more or less ended, the door has been left open for them to once again be enforced the second politicians find another excuse.
Both major parties share the blame for these violations of civil liberties, as they happened under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. While a lot of the most egregious policies occurred in blue states, many of the attempts by Republican governors to counter these measures, such as bans on private businesses implementing their own mask or vaccine requirements for their customers and employees, have also resulted in more power being placed into the government’s hands. These infringements on liberty need to be completely rolled back across the board, but doing so could prove to be a challenge.
Mixed Messaging and Government Hypocrisy
Protests
The hypocrisy of politicians and bureaucrats showed itself almost immediately — there are so many examples that I couldn’t possibly include them all here — but one of the most obvious examples was over the summer of 2020 when mass protests against police brutality erupted all over the country. Those protests (many of which could more accurately be referred to as riots) had their fair share of problems, but regardless of how one feels about the Black Lives Matter movement, the freedom to protest is a very important right that is enshrined within our constitution.
As much of the country was locked down in response to Covid-19, the protests against police brutality were viewed by many politicians and public health officials as a worthy excuse to violate those restrictions. That is exactly what was so hypocritical, as months before, protests against those very lockdowns were condemned by the same public officials who praised the BLM protests. Personally, I’m sympathetic to both causes, and at the time I tried to point out that both of them were protesting the same entity: the State. However, the right to protest should always be protected, especially by our leaders, regardless of the surrounding circumstances or how one feels about the specific cause. We should all hold our leaders accountable when they fail to be consistent on such matters.
Public Health Officials
Throughout the pandemic, public health officials continually struggled to gather accurate information and competently relay it to the public, sometimes even intentionally lying out of some warped sense of nobility. A good example of that would be when Anthony Fauci, a leading infectious disease expert to the White House for both the Trump and Biden administrations, told the public not to wear masks just to go back on that statement not long after. His excuse was that he was worried people would hoard as many masks as they could, causing them to be unavailable for healthcare workers who needed them more. Considering how people panic-bought toilet paper and bottled water in the early months of the pandemic, that logic checks out, but it’s not Fauci’s job to decide when it’s appropriate to be honest with the American public, it’s his job to interpret the science and give us the most accurate information at hand.
Fauci isn’t the only one who repeatedly dropped the ball either. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) not only failed to set clear, consistent guidelines or provide competent messaging, but they have also frequently gone against the science itself (don’t confuse the science for Anthony Fauci) and engaged in corrupt and unconstitutional behavior.
For example, before she was the current CDC director, Rochelle Welensky openly stated her belief that schools could safely reopen with only three feet of distance between students (a belief shared by much of Europe very early on) but after being put in charge of the CDC she changed her tune. Leaked emails showed that her reason for this was not scientific data, but was instead pressure from the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teacher’s unions in the country, who at the time adamantly opposed reopening schools. It also just so happens that teacher’s unions routinely donate to the Democratic Party, but I’m sure that had no effect on the CDC’s decision-making under a newly sworn-in Democratic president.
As for the unconstitutional behavior, the CDC under Donald Trump (sorry Republicans, your side isn’t innocent in this) invoked a nationwide moratorium on evictions which essentially nationalized millions of houses and apartments across the country, property rights be damned. While many think of landlords as wealthy and corrupt people taking advantage of the working class, the opposite is often closer to the truth. There are many working-class landlords, many of whom are immigrants, that were negatively affected by the moratorium.
Also, the idea that a “tsunami of evictions” was being held back by the moratorium is nonsense. What landlord in their right mind would immediately evict a tenant in otherwise good standing, simply because they were unable to work due to the lockdowns? Obviously, it’s entirely possible, and I’m sure you could find more than a few examples, but it’s more likely that most landlords would’ve been willing to work something out with their tenants rather than lose them and have to try to find new renters during such an unpredictable time. If their current tenant couldn’t work because half the economy was closed down, what are the odds that their next one would be in a better position?
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also failed early on. One of the most damaging failures of the bureaucracy was their painfully slow process to allow private companies within the U.S. to manufacture Covid-19 tests, which led to a lack of testing during the beginning stages of the pandemic when it mattered most. What especially highlighted this failure was that other countries managed to succeed where we couldn’t and had much better access to testing. As a result of the FDA’s delayed approval, two years into this pandemic, at-home tests are still difficult to come by.
The FDA, along with the CDC and other public health officials, also did very little to focus on early treatment of the disease, possibly costing lives. While drugs like Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine might not be the miracle cures that many people portray them as, they are, however, both relatively cheap and safe drugs that have been used for various reasons for decades. If there was even a possibility that off-label use of these drugs could have helped to reduce severe illness if applied early enough, why not support doctors prescribing those treatments at their discretion, especially prior to vaccines even being produced let alone being widely available?
Both drugs have consistently been mocked by many politicians and much of the corporate press. Donald Trump’s overly enthusiastic promotion of Hydroxychloroquine sparked quite a bit of controversy, and the use of Ivermectin was mocked due to the drug being an ingredient in veterinary products, regardless of the fact that it’s also routinely and safely used to treat humans for various reasons. To be clear, I am in no way suggesting these drugs are effective treatments against Covid-19, as there’s no conclusive evidence to support that claim, I am simply saying it’s worth looking into and that doctors and patients shouldn’t be mocked if they choose to use these drugs, especially since they are relatively safe when taken in the appropriate dose.
One of the only treatments to ever really be promoted was the use of monoclonal antibodies, which, like the vaccines, were authorized under an emergency use authorization (EUA). However, during the recent wave of the omicron variant, the FDA rescinded that authorization of certain forms of the treatment, due to their lack of effectiveness to that particular strain of the virus. Oddly, even though the vaccine’s effectiveness — even with a booster — was also lessened in regard to omicron, (and delta before it) the authorizations for the vaccines remained.
I’m not advocating that the FDA should’ve also rescinded the authorization of the vaccines, I’m just pointing out the disparity between those decisions. Regardless of your opinion on these various drugs, people should have the right to talk with their personal medical professionals and choose for themselves which ones they’re comfortable with, without being forced into a decision and without the government’s red tape getting in the way. Currently, vaccines are widely available and new drugs designed to treat Covid-19 have received authorization from the FDA, but before that was the case, where was the focus on early treatment?
Politicians
Public health officials and bureaucrats weren’t the only people who misled the public or engaged in hypocrisy. There are many examples of politicians supporting arbitrary mandates with little (if any) basis in science, and then disregarding their own restrictions. As I stated before, there are far too many examples to list here, but some of my favorites include California Governor Gavin Newsom breaking his own rules by dining maskless with lobbyists indoors, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi going to a salon without a mask while lockdowns and mask mandates were in effect, and San Francisco Mayor London Breed attending a live indoor concert without a mask, and then saying she doesn’t need the “fun police” to ruin her good time.
I don’t mean to pick on California too much, as similar stories took place all over the country, but considering they had some of the harshest restrictions in the nation, it makes sense that many of these examples would come out of that state. To clarify, I don’t think that these activities on their own were dangerous or reckless. However, if politicians are going to abuse their authority and support egregious violations of liberty, the least they could do is obey their own rules. If they don’t believe their restrictions apply to them, then why do they feel those restrictions should apply to us?
Unintended Consequences
Lockdowns
The response to Covid-19 was a heavy-handed approach that I would argue was an overreaction. I understand that many people who were personally impacted by the pandemic may feel differently, and I sympathize with those who lost friends or family to the virus, but that doesn't change the effects that were caused by the lockdowns and mandates that accompanied it. If you care about the real human suffering brought on by the virus itself, then you should also care about the suffering brought on by the response to it.
That suffering consisted of unemployment, the shuttering of small businesses, and millions of people falling into poverty worldwide. Many of the jobs that were lost have since returned, but far too many family-owned businesses will never reopen. The lockdowns resulted in one of the largest transfers of wealth in history, as large corporations were able to keep their doors open while mom-and-pops had to close. The depression and loneliness that was brought about by schools and businesses being shut down also led to a spike in suicides and drug overdoses, and domestic violence and homicides also increased over the past two years. None of this was a coincidence, these results were predictable and avoidable.
The lockdowns also helped to cause the supply chain issues that we are still putting up with today. Despite what many politicians and pundits suggested in March of 2020, it turns out you can’t just shut off the economy and start it back up like a glitchy laptop. As a misguided attempt to solve the economic devastation that the lockdowns caused, both the Trump and Biden administrations allowed the Federal Reserve to print trillions of dollars to fund entitlement programs and provide stimulus checks to U.S. citizens. Congress also made sure to include many provisions to these bills that had nothing to do with Covid-19 each time they passed a stimulus package.
As a result, the amount of money in circulation has significantly increased and has led to the massive levels of inflation we’re continuing to see. Regardless of how hard Biden, the corporate press, or TikTokers try to pin this inflation on Vladimir Putin, the Fed and the U.S. government carry the vast majority of the blame. (Although the current invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions on Russian oil are not helping the situation.)
Masks/Vaccines
It’s not just the lockdowns that had negative effects, however. The mask mandates have caused their own share of problems, with the obvious example being they exacerbated the already extreme levels of polarization that this country has seen for the last several years. I shouldn’t be able to tell who you voted for just by whether or not you’re wearing a mask, but unfortunately, everything in this country has to end up as part of the culture war. I honestly think that if the government had stayed out of the discussion and let people and businesses make their own risk assessments, mask-wearing wouldn’t have become so political, but that’s just my opinion.
Another problem masks caused (and in some places, are still causing) is the hindering of cognitive development of young children. There was never a good reason for kids to wear masks, but even today children are forced to cover their faces while adults have begun resuming their somewhat normal lives, mask-free. The dangerous effects of these policies are very real, and they will become even more obvious as time goes on. We won’t know the full extent of the damage until years down the road, but that damage surely exists.
The vaccines also became overly politicized. If you chose to forgo the vaccine for whatever reason, or simply opposed vaccine mandates, you were deemed an “anti-vaxxer” regardless of your views on vaccines in general or whether or not you’d been vaccinated yourself. Also, these vaccines are not completely risk-free. It appears to be true that the vast majority of people who receive the vaccine don’t experience any drastic negative effects, but that does not mean that there are no risks associated with them. The mRNA vaccines carry the risk of Pericarditis and Myocarditis, and the Johnson and Johnson vaccine was actually pulled by the FDA for a few weeks due to its known link to blood clots. Ignoring these risks and advocating for universal vaccine mandates is neither sensible nor scientific.
Censorship
Calls for censoring anyone who challenged the establishment narrative of this pandemic have been a constant factor of the last two years, no matter how many times that narrative was proven false. In 2020, Big Tech platforms would ban your account if you suggested the virus came from a lab; today, that is a leading theory of its origin. More recently, Dr. Robert Malone — whose work helped to pioneer the mRNA technology in use today — had his Twitter account taken down because he has publicly questioned the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. Personally, I’m in the camp that believes private companies should be allowed to moderate their platforms as they see fit, but when the White House and Congress routinely put pressure on these companies to moderate in a specific way, it ceases to be a private company making its own decisions, which is very worrisome indeed.
There was also an example of censorship by Anthony Fauci when he conspired with National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Frances Collins in an attempt to discredit the doctors and scientists who signed the Great Barrington Declaration, a document signed by more than 15,000 credentialed scientists and medical professionals which condemned the use of heavy-handed mitigation policies. Fauci may truly believe that his name is synonymous with science, but that doesn’t make it a reality, and trying to discredit your opponents instead of debating the merits of their position isn’t very scientific. Open discussion of ideas is how to discover the truth, not silencing those you disagree with.
“The Science Has Changed”
Outdoor/Indoor Spread
As time has gone on and even the most ardent supporters of government intervention have grown weary of inconsistently applied mitigation policies, the mantra of “follow the science” that has been spouted by many over the last two years has now turned into “the science has changed”. It’s true, science changes frequently, and much of what we originally thought we knew about this virus has since been revised, but those changes didn’t happen recently. There have been many examples of the response to this pandemic being contradicted by science, and some of them took place early on but are just now being openly discussed.
For starters, it’s been well known that Covid-19 spreads much easier in enclosed and poorly-ventilated indoor spaces compared to outdoors, but governments all over the world continued to lock people in their homes (where most spread occurs) until very recently, and to this day people will still cover their faces when they’re walking alone outside. We’ve also been aware that the virus isn’t likely to spread from surfaces, yet many people still act as though it does. Clearly, much of what we’ve been told to do to “slow the spread” over the last two years has been hygiene theater, and even as that fact becomes obvious (though for some people it has been obvious for a while) people still participate in these largely symbolic gestures.
Less Risk to Children
We’ve also known since very early on that most healthy children are, fortunately, not at high-risk for severe illness or death from the disease. Despite this knowledge, children have been kept out of school and locked in their homes for much of their young lives, and when they were allowed to go out into the world they were forced to wear a mask much of the time. In some places (until very recently) children were even required to be vaccinated to participate in regular life. Parents should have the option to vaccinate their children if they decide it’s what they feel is best, but the idea that children can’t live normal lives safely without the vaccine is simply not true.
Inflated Death Count
Speaking of children and how “the science has changed”, the CDC updated the Covid-19 death toll recently, because as it turns out, those numbers were inaccurate and inflated. Much of the change occurred in the count of pediatric deaths, meaning policies like keeping schools shut down and forcing children to wear masks were based on faulty data. We should be glad that fewer people were killed by the virus than what was originally reported, but we should also hold the CDC accountable for their incompetent handling of that data.
Lockdowns/Mandates
There have also been recent studies that have corroborated much of what skeptics of lockdowns and mandates have been saying all along. Specifically, a Johns Hopkins study concluded that lockdowns did very little to prevent the spread of Covid-19. What they did do, however, is severely harm society and the economy. There have also been other studies showing that mask mandates had little effect as well, and the CDC and Fauci have since admitted that cloth masks don’t work well at preventing transmission.
The science of the Covid-19 vaccines has changed as well. When they were initially rolled out, we were told that getting vaccinated would prevent people from becoming infected with Covid-19, and even if you had a breakthrough case (which at the time was considered rare) the vaccines were said to also prevent the transmission of the virus. While they appear to still prevent severe illness and death from Covid-19, it is an indisputable fact that they don’t prevent infection and transmission, and they haven’t been able to for quite some time, which makes vaccine mandates all the more dubious.
Political Incentives
Conveniently, the corporate press and many Democratic politicians have waited until just before the upcoming midterms to acknowledge these changes to the science that happened months, if not years ago. Right before President Biden gave his recent State of the Union address, Congress lifted its own mask mandate, and the CDC recently changed their mask guidance which changed 70% of the country from being considered high-transmission areas to low or medium essentially overnight. However, to this day if you have to get on a plane, you better make sure to remember your mask.
Make no mistake, though the science has changed, that is not what prompted the belated changes in guidance and policy. It’s not scientific, it’s political. The last two years have been long, tiresome, tyrannical, oppressive, and arbitrary, to put it simply, and most people are sick of it. It has long been time to put an end to the security theater we’ve all been subjected to for 24 months straight, but we shouldn’t let our leaders off the hook so easily. We need to remember that they’re responsible for the damage these oppressive mitigation policies have caused.
The world will forever be changed due to the lockdowns and mandates of the Covid-era, and although the media is currently drawing our attention to other conflicts, that doesn’t mean we need to forget what we’ve been put through. Two weeks to slow the spread has lasted for two long years, and much of this tyranny will continue far into the future unless we actively work to hold our leaders accountable and regain the freedoms we’ve lost along the way.
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