A Lock Down Rant that still holds!

 

This is a rant I originally composed at the end of August of last year but which I never published to my blog at the time. Instead I submitted it to the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal where they decided to not print it. I have now updated it. Funny how the only real changes I have made were updating some numbers. The key points and conclusions are still relevant!

 

Authour and columnist Mark Steyn labelled last summer as the “Summer of Stupid”. I must agree with him.

Ever since the lock down was imposed, I have researched to see how virulent and deadly the stated “pandemic” was. It did not take much searching to find solid evidence that refuted the original forecasts. Of course, it did not help that the main driving force behind implementing the lock down was a computer model generated by the Imperial College in the UK that has now been totally debunked. It needs to be emphasised that there has not yet been a computer model of any complex natural phenomenon that has generated a prediction anywhere even close to reality. Yet we still have people, especially the media, hyping these ”predictions”.

Even though the model was wrong the originally stated justification for the lock down was “to flatten the curve”. By late summer, the curve was so flat as to be virtually non-existent, yet we remained under partial lock down. So much for “flattening the curve”! Based on observations of declining deaths from Covid-19 and other facts, like it not being anywhere as easily spread as had been predicted, I had figured the lock down restrictions would have eased by the beginning of May and expected total removal by the end of June. I was wrong on both counts but not because of Covid-19.

This “pandemic” has glaringly revealed two issues that hamper our recovery: the media in general is now so out of touch with reality that they have become irrelevant, and politicians have become so connected to the rantings and ravings of the media that they too are out of touch with reality. That leaves us, the people these two groups are supposed to serve, being led by morons without any sense of morality or rational thought.

Take for example the current trend by the media to focus on “cases”. The numbers being bandied about mean nothing! Far more testing is being done now that earlier on. Studies have shown that a significant portion of these tests result in false positive results. On top of that the tests cannot tell if you have already been infected and now you are immune (you carry within you RNA fragments of the virus yet they have no impact on your health). Immunization activates the immune system by creating the antigens needed to fight the target pathogen. Even if “infected” it does not mean you are going to die from the virus! Do you know how many under the age of 20 have died of the virus in Ontario to date (January 27, 2021)? Two. In Sweden, the one country that did not impose a lock down, do you know how many have died in the same age group from the virus? Nine. And that is assuming the reported deaths were due to the virus, with many examples of people dying of other causes who also had symptoms or tested positive of Covid-19. For example, the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) has admitted that, for the US, “for 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned”. The other 94% had contributing causes; they were already ill! Have you seen that in the “news”?

The media, rather than reporting the truth and even doing basic research to confirm what they are saying, instead have become a pack of jackals trying to tear our society apart. Far too often they have been focusing on shaming each of us with a false narrative! Whether it be hyping the “cases” rather than focusing on the very few deaths. Or scolding everyone that we should be wearing masks. Masks that do not stop any virus! What I find most reprehensible is that these blathering idiots who call themselves “journalists” do no investigations into whether masks are effective but instead do like all mindless mobs and promote nonsense!

I have read that Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the UK, is a highly intelligent person. This is the same person who contracted the virus, recovered and, thanks to the antibodies flowing through his veins, is now immune. So, what does he do? He wears a mask anytime he is in public! A person who is not infected and thus unable to spread the virus plus is immune and so is incapable of being infected. Why? Because he does not want the media to attack him, facts be damned! The stupid being led by the blind.

We are being controlled by an incestuous pair who have shown a total lack of ethics and morals and are incapable of rational thought. We all ask, when will this end? With the apparent incessant “March of the Morons” (another phase thanks to Mark Steyn) only time will tell. We need to start standing up for ourselves and reclaiming our “rights and freedoms” that are our birthright. For example, at the next opportunity to vote on retaining any of the current batch of morons, please do not waste your vote by re-electing any of them! Provided of course that the politicians allow us the opportunity to judge them on their unwillingness to just say that they made a mistake in not ending the lock down as soon as it became obvious that this virus is not the scourge it had been made out to be! We need to shed the shackles imposed on us by the politicians, goaded on by the media, the sooner the better.

The US Democrats

 

I have followed American politics a fair amount over the years. America is our countries dominate trading partner and many Americans would vacation in Canada, especially the part of the country I live in. Still, as I had no control over the result of elections in the US, I was, and remain, just an interested observer. Over the years my political leanings matched well with the Democratic party. I did not really care for Nixon as he just did not come across as being trustworthy. But again, that was just an observation and not an indictment. I liked Carter as he was a nice guy, but like they say about nice guys… Reagan was interesting, especially his sense of humour. The fact he was almost assassinated got me wondering what is wrong with Americans, but again just as an observance. I did not dwell on that conclusion of the moment.

Clinton, I thought, was great! I especially loved the fact he could play the saxophone, a musical instrument I wish I had the talent to play, but do not. I for one do not measure a person based on what they do in the bedroom. The impeachment proceedings were not nice but at least the Republicans followed protocol whether you agree or not; all charges were supported by real evidence even though it was quite a stretch to consider them “high crimes and misdemeanours”. He was followed by Bush the younger. To this day I still do not understand why he felt it was so important to invade Iraq and depose and execute Saddam.

With the election of Obama, like so many other people around the world, it appeared that a watershed moment had arrived in that the rampant racism of the past was finally disappearing. Then he won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing… nothing. WTF? And the rest of his presidency was more of the same; there was great promise upon which he delivered nothing except making race relations worse rather than better. He had the audacity to give hope but failed to deliver. Still, from my perspective, of the two parties it was the Democrats that seemed to be the sanest, most down to earth people, who respected the law, and were egalitarian.

Then along came Trump. I am not much for “reality” television but had seen a few clips of “The Apprentice”. I thought “what a boor”. As the primaries progressed and he started moving up in the pack I started to pay closer attention but rather than focusing on the surficial I listened instead to just what he was saying to get a better sense of why more and more people were being attracted to him. His message made a lot of sense! Why should terrorists be given free access? Isn’t the reason we have borders is to ensure only those who we can trust can enter? Similarly, why should we give Carte Blanche access to immigrants whose primary goals are to sponge off hard working taxpayers like me? Something our Prime Minister did not, and still does not understand. Every item on his list I understood and agreed with the position taken. Plus, on top of it he would not back down from a fight. Having been bullied as a youth the one defensive measure that always worked for me was exactly that. I got into a few fights of which I never won any, but my opponents quickly learned I was no push over and would then direct their attentions elsewhere. I really have a soft spot for the underdog and Trump was that.

I am going to digress a bit here by going back to an issue that is important to this narrative. Back in the late 1990’s Canada signed onto the “Kyoto Protocol” to address “global warming”. Being one who spends a lot of time outdoors through my work I was curious as to where this thought that things were getting hotter was coming from as I had no sense of that at all. The deeper I dug the more confused and astounded I became as the “evidence” provided was, to put it mildly, nonsense. Since then, I have kept abreast of any new “developments” and I can assure you there are no facts that support human caused global warming. When the powers that be saw they were losing ground they changed the story to one of “climate change”, different name but again no supporting facts. If you have read this far and are saying to yourself “he’s wrong” I can assure you with one hundred percent certainty that you are suffering from “confirmation bias” as well as “cognitive dissonance”. After over 20 years of looking for reliable data that support that position, if it were there, I would have bought on; you go where the data takes you, and the data does not lie. Only people do. So now I have a tool that I use to quickly tell if someone is truthful or not. If they accept human caused “global warming” or “climate change” without question they are not to be trusted.

Soon after the turn of the century I began noticing a troubling change in the media; they consistently showed bias. As I said before, when dealing with data you first need to validate it to ensure it can be trusted and then you go where the data takes you. To do a proper job of data acquisition and analysis you must reduce bias as much as possible. Because of things such as sampling error, bias can not be eliminated. Just minimised. The media were not doing that but instead taking sides regardless of the data. For one who believes in fairness this, to me, was unacceptable. Now that I was aware, I started paying closer attention to what was being said and done in the public square. And now we come back to 4 years ago.

With the election of Trump, I was happy because the right person won. He ran on policies that made sense whereas Clinton ran on “vote for me as I am a woman”. That may have worked for Obama running on “vote for me as I am black” but at least he also had other aspects to his platform even if he failed to deliver on most. Then the Democrats showed who they really are, liars, cheats, and just morally deficient miscreants. I was, and still am, appalled! The people who I thought “fought the good fight” are not to be trusted as they are terrible losers!

Over the last 4 years they have become the poster children of the following three psychological phrases, terms I had never heard of prior and two of which I have already referred to: “confirmation bias’,” cognitive dissonance” and “projection”.

Trump has exposed all three deficiencies of the Democrats for all to see except, ironically, the Democrats themselves. For example, he pointed out vividly the lies the media was telling and used repeatedly the term “fake news”. What was their response but to use projection and call him a liar at every turn! And what lies did he tell? He used hyperbole and exaggeration. Again. If you do not agree with that look back at his many “lies” and read and listen to them in the context they were delivered. If you are unable to distinguish that type of language the problem is not him, or I but you as you are caught up fully with cognitive dissonance.

Another example of “projection” out of the many available has been the handling of Covid-19 in the state of New York. Governor Cuomo, for non-egalitarian reasons, ordered those who had been diagnosed as having the virus but were getting better to be sent to old age homes to recover. As a result, many elderly died sooner than they should. Rather than admit his mistake he blamed those deaths on Trump.

For 4 years Trump has been under continuous attack by the Democrats and their allies, most of the Mainstream Media as well as the giants of social media. During the recent election they all doubled down in their efforts to win no matter how illegal and despicable the method.

When it was on television I used to watch “The Good Wife”. The back story for the show was that the husband, played by Chris Noth, a former Democratic state’s attorney, ended up in jail for charges including corruption (ballot stuffing). Over the run of the series the writers worked hard to downplay, and even negate, the reality they first established. While both parties deal in corruption none do it more than the Democrats. I cannot get over how many Democrats who have been re-elected multiple times are millionaires even though they barely had two nickels to rub together when they first entered politics. The corruption is deep and far reaching. Trump made that part of his platform to get rid of as much as he could; “drain the swamp”. But they would not go willingly. And now one of the front runners in the corruption race is the next President. Thanks to election fraud supported by video, eyewitness counts and lots of evidence. Since when do you see vote counts going in the negative direction? The 2020 US election! All are methods not tolerated here in Canada. We may have our problems but at least we have an electoral system we can trust. Not so the US.

For 3 years we heard seemingly endless reports about Trumps ties with Russia based on a false “report“ commissioned by the Democrats. Yet here there is well established evidence, including him admitting on television that he did it, that Biden has used his influence to benefit his family and himself. Plus, on top he has, and is colluding with China. And that corrupt fool is “elected” President?

Maybe I too am suffering from a mild case of cognitive dissonance in that I do believe a portion of the Democratic party are morally upright. But too many are liars, cheats, two-faced, and just despicable people. All now lead by a man who calls for “unity” while his many party faithful are looking for ways to “re-program”, dox, cancel, and just wipe off the face of the earth their opponents. Like Mussolini said long ago, “We do not argue with those who disagree with us, we destroy them. “ And the Democrats have torn a page, or more, out of his play book.

Here is another quote by Benito Mussolini that applies as well:

 It looks like that day has come.

The evolution of Politics

 

With the following I present a relatively brief analysis of how I see we have reached where we are now, politically. Key aspects I will gloss over only because they are presented as highlights to guide us on this journey of discovery.

Human society has, and is, dominated by those who lust for power and lust for money, or at least what goes for “money” at any point in time, whether it be rare precious metals such as gold or, as it is today, the currency that is in common use. Not everyone has these lusts but always a few do, and they impact the rest of us. Power is the desire to dominate others. And money can be used for the same purpose.

Early civilisation came about due to the need to cooperate in that, in an extremely dangerous world, one person is weak but if they join forces with others, they become strong. An added benefit of this cooperation is that one person could be much better at a certain task but not good at others and so you could barter resulting in mutual benefit. With the realisation that you had something to trade at a time others did not came the development of currency; an agreement to honour the value of something at a later date.

At the beginning of human civilisation power was expressed by physical might. Who ever was able to convince others, “warriors”,  especially if they had brawn, in order to force the rest, “serfs”, to submit to their will, they had the power and thus were named “leader”. But to keep control of the brawn the leader of the local hierarchy had to provide food and lodging to his warriors. The leader would then extort payment from the serfs and so started taxation.

For millennia battles were fought due to power struggles between adjacent leaders. Those leaders with the biggest egos and the best warriors carved out empires of ever-increasing size. But there was a downside in that the conquered commonly resented being subjects of the new leader. And so many an empire has failed due to rebellion by the masses subjugated by force.

“Politics” is the activities related to power relations between all the various groups that have leaders. As human society evolved so did the struggles between leaders and their followers. Those leaders who had the support of the subjects had a better chance of surviving rebellions. Similarly, those leaders who were able to negotiate agreements with other leaders without the use of force had a better chance of not being subjected to negative aspects of warfare. As time has progressed it has become more obvious to those who lust for power that it is better for their own health if they can convince the serfs to accept their rule willingly and so evolved “democracy”.

During the 1600’s John Locke, a philosopher and physician, formulated the ideas that make up what used to be “liberalism”. I say “used to be” only because his ideas have become perverted by those that are influenced by the writings of Karl Marks, a philosopher from the 19^th century. While Marx’s “class struggles” have been found to be false they still have an appeal even to this day. At the core though is his misunderstanding of the “free market” or as he and others preferred to call it, “Capitalism”.

The Free Market is the result of people cooperating amongst themselves to determine what a “fair” price is. When a buyer and seller can come to a mutual agreement that results in a transaction where both are satisfied with the result then trust is established. If someone else can come up with either a better product for the same price or an equivalent product at a lower price pressure is exerted on the competing seller to give the buyer fair value. When this trade is extended to money, “capital”, then we ended up with Capitalism whereby people “invest” in business opportunities with those that benefit the most people being the most successful. Because there was no coercion by leaders we ended up with a “free” market. But the lust for power and money always brings out the ugly side of commerce. If a seller can somehow eliminate any competition, no longer is the market “free”, even if the buyer is willing to pay what ever the price is as determined by the seller. This was the aspect of Capitalism that Marx focused on.

At its very essence Marxism divides society into two groups; the oppressed and the oppressors. Like most, if not all, simplistic representations of complex systems that is one that has not stood the test of time. Without fail those who overthrow the “oppressors” typically take on that role themselves. That is the biggest problem with the quest for power. As the old saying goes; power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Marxism relies on the belief that a benevolent government can decide what is fair. But as history keeps reminding us, yet we never seem to learn, the bigger government gets the less it can be “fair”. While we would like to think we are all equal, we are not. Some of us work harder than others or are more skilled or smarter et cetera and so on. Plus, the opposite holds. That is where any system that thinks that “equality of outcome”, for example, will work is wrong as the human condition prevents that. It is for this reason Communism failed as has every other system that modelled itself after the false ideals of Marxism.

This brings me now to the early part of the twentieth century with the rise and fall of Fascism. As a form of Socialism, the core belief, as stated by Mussolini himself is “all within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state”. With the “state” being government. Oh, and here are a couple of other quotes made by Mussolini: “We do not argue with those who disagree with us, we destroy them”, and “The press of Italy is free, freer than the press of any other country, so long as it supports the regime”. Of course, his type of socialism was better than the rest, so he made sure he crushed the opposition. Yet he is considered “right-wing”, all because he and other Fascists allowed limited free enterprise.

It is funny in an odd way that too often “free-enterprise” and “capitalism” are commonly bandied around when discussing political ideology. Those two phrases describe an economic system, not a political one. Politics is about the interrelationship of people whereas Capitalism is all about commerce. And that is where the Fascists saw the flaw in Marxism and tried to make, in their minds, a better system. Unfortunately for he and Hitler their lust for power got in the way resulting in World War 2 and their utter defeat.

Yet like a cancer socialism keeps rearing its ugly head. No, the analogue should be alcohol addiction. If kept in check you can lead a reasonably normal life. While government is encouraged it has not got to the stage where it becomes deadly. But it does slow down the economy as industry struggles under the oppression of over regulation.

One country that tried to make communism work but, unlike Russia, did realise before it was to late it could not sustain itself, is China. All because too much control of an economy by government leads to death of that economy. In 1987 China allowed the existence of free enterprise within its borders. They pulled back from controlling how goods were manufactured and traded and left that to the “capitalists”. The one control they did maintain was monetary policy by making sure that on the world stage, no matter how well the economy was doing within its own borders, outside China its goods would always be cheaper in the global marketplace. Without many realising it China has quietly cast aside the robes of Communism and replaced them with the robes of Fascism. They retained control over the people using big government but allowed commerce to take place under the general rules of free enterprise. The Phoenix has risen from the ashes of its destruction in the 20^th Century.

As history demonstrates with the many dynasties that have ruled their country the one thing the Chinese are good at is looking at the long game and learning from the past. Up until relatively recently it was standard practice to take control over others by force. It is now well established that is no longer the case. Subversion is the key to getting the quarry to submit willingly.

The recent US election is evidence of that, as was the election a while back here in Canada that saw Justin Trudeau put into power. First, what was required, was to subvert students in universities. These converts went out and subverted the following: media, our traditional collective conscience and moral guide; political parties; and industry. That is why our current mega corporations openly support China and socialism in general. They know that the only power framework that has the potential for really working is Fascism. But like Voldemort in the Harry Potter books, that name cannot be openly spoken by its adherents as to do so will give away the game that is afoot.