Are lockdowns one of the most catastrophic policy errors of the century?

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In many countries, there has been a systematic and mandatory paralysis of schooling, work, leisure, and mobility.

When respected scientific experts sitting on prestigious governmental advisory committees warned citizens early last year that the only way to protect themselves against Covid-19 was to shut down their businesses and stay at home until public health officials deemed it safe to come out again, most complied, even at great personal and economic cost.

The result has been one of the most far-reaching and unprecedented social experiments of modern times: the systematic and mandatory paralysis of a large swathe of normal social activity, including schooling, work, leisure, and mobility. If this giant experiment had been run on a one-off basis for a few weeks, the impact might have been moderate; but as it morphed into “rolling” lockdowns, the cure became far worse than the disease.

China got the ball rolling, by imposing a dramatic lockdown upon its citizens in January 2020. A host of Western governments soon followed suit, and lockdowns were imposed in relatively quick succession in Italy, France, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Greece, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and large parts of North America.

A “lockdown” could be technically defined as one or more non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) which heavily restrict the movements and activities of the general population in order to contain the spread of an infectious disease. Voluntary reductions in socialising are not considered as lockdown measures; involuntary, police-enforced restrictions such as stay-at-home orders, travel restrictions, partial or complete border closures, and mandatory school and business closures, are.

The use of these sorts of highly intrusive population-wide measures to mitigate a pandemic represent a revolutionary break with conventional wisdom and best practice surrounding infectious disease control.

Prior to 2020, national and international public health authorities generally accepted that infectious diseases should be mitigated through relatively non-intrusive measures like improved hand hygiene, the development of more effective medical treatments and vaccines, and isolation of specific individuals or groups known to have been exposed to an infectious disease.

For example, the report on “Non-pharmaceutical public health measures for mitigating the risk and impact of epidemic and pandemic influenza” issued by the World Health Organisation in 2019 did not endorse the general efficacy of border closures as tools of disease control, nor did it contemplate the possibility of confining healthy populations to their homes.

So much for the prevailing philosophies of disease control. What of prevailing practices of disease control? To my knowledge, neither mandatory school and business closures, nor stay-at-home orders, have ever been employed in a systematic and centrally coordinated way to mitigate disease – that is, until January 2020. Therefore, centrally coordinated lockdowns of the sort that we have seen in 2020 must be considered as unorthodox, untested, and highly experimental interventions.

The question is, what have been the fruits of this giant public policy experiment? Have lockdowns actually been vindicated by their net benefits?

In order to adequately address this question, we must be clear on one thing: the appropriate benchmark for assessing the merits of lockdown policies is not just their capacity to reduce Covid infections or deaths, but their capacity to advance the overall health and well-being of affected populations.

For example, even if we eliminated Covid from the face of the earth, that would hardly be desirable if it drove a large section of the population into poverty and increased overall excess mortality.

Nobody in their right mind would deny that Covid-19 illnesses and deaths are a serious harm that we should mitigate in any reasonable way we can. Nonetheless, given the massive collateral damages that severe and prolonged lockdowns are known to inflict on society, they should never be undertaken in the absence of a careful cost-benefit analysis.

Yet to this day, I have not seen reports of any serious or sustained effort by pro-lockdown governments to show that the enormous harms of lockdown are justified by their likely net benefits. The fact that lockdowns have been employed without this sort of justification in hand is reason enough to consider them as reckless, inhumane and morally abhorrent.

The predictable harms of lockdowns, which will have to be carefully documented and tallied over the coming months and years, are extensive.

They include the worst global recession, according to World Bank analysts, since World War II, and dramatic increases in poverty and unemployment (currently at 25% in Ireland, including recipients of Covid payments according to the Central Office of Statistics), which are known to bring in their train declines in mental and physical health. This is also resulting in reduced public funding for healthcare due to a depressed economy; and an increase in social inequality, as day labourers and contract workers are uniquely vulnerable to the economic shock of lockdowns.

We’ve also seen an unprecedented transfer of wealth from small and medium businesses to multinational companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Google (given that small and medium traders are hit much harder by lockdowns than online traders).

Other tragic consequences of lockdown include spikes in loneliness, depression, and domestic abuse as people are deprived of social outlets beyond their homes. A generation of children are being set back in their education and life prospects by prolonged school closures (according to UNESCO, the impact of school closures “is particularly severe for the most vulnerable and marginalized (children)”.

A spike in untreated illnesses in expected, including cancer and heart disease, due to the cancellation of routine medical services and the generalised fear and panic generated by lockdowns. The WHO reported this month that the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic was “stark” and “profound” with “50 per cent of governments (having) cancer services partially or completely disrupted because of the pandemic.” One study in The Lancet Oncology journal estimates an increase of 8-9% in breast cancer deaths up to 5 years after diagnosis due to reductions or suspensions in cancer services.

On top of these obvious harms, we should not underestimate the impact of lockdown policies on civil rights and the rule of law. Legislators across Europe and North America have empowered the police to interrogate citizens just because they step into their cars, pay a visit to a friend or relative, or take a walk on the beach.

This level of State interference with basic civil liberties puts in jeopardy something very precious about the Western way of life: the idea that law-abiding citizens are free and responsible for their own actions, and not prisoners or wards of State.

Lockdowns are morally questionable on civil liberty grounds alone. But even if one believes it is legitimate to imprison citizens in their homes and strip them of a livelihood for the greater good, lockdowns remain a dangerous social experiment which should never be attempted in the absence of a compelling case that they do more good than harm.

Any government that does not provide a transparent and rigorous assessment of the likely costs and benefits of lockdowns before implementing them is guilty of gross negligence, and must answer to its citizens for its reckless and misguided interventions.

This article has been republished from Gript, with the permission of the author.

COLUMN BY

David Thunder

David Thunder is the Ramón y Cajal Researcher at the Institute for Culture & Society, (Religion & Civil Society Project) Biblioteca de Humanidades, University of Navarra, Spain. His publications… More by David Thunder

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EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

SICK: Wuhan Lab Eligible To Receive U.S. Taxpayer Funding Through 2024

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Rewarding the CCP for the overthrow of “We the People” using Chinese bio-weaponry developed in Wuhan.

Wuhan Lab Eligible To Receive US Taxpayer Funding Through 2024

  • The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is authorized to receive taxpayer funding for animal research through January 2024, according to the National Institute of Health.
  • The WIV received $600,000 in taxpayer funds between 2014 and 2019 through the nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance to study bat-based coronaviruses. 
  • The president of EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak, was the sole U.S. member in the World Health Organization delegation that investigated the origins of COVID-19 in China.
  • Daszak said the White House should blindly accept the WHO’s determination that it’s highly unlikely that COVID-19 could have unintentionally leaked from the WIV.

By: Daily Caller Foundation, February 21, 2021:

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is authorized to receive taxpayer funding for animal research until January 2024, the National Institute of Health told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The WIV is at the center of widespread speculation that COVID-19 could have entered the human population in China due to an accidental lab leak. Researchers at the lab were studying bat-based coronaviruses prior to the outbreak, a project partially backed by $600,000 in U.S. taxpayer funds routed to the lab through the nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance.

The president of EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak, was the sole U.S. member of the World Health Organization delegation that investigated the origins of the pandemic on the ground in China in January and February. While the WHO delegation has yet to release a report on their findings, Daszak said the White House should blindly accept their conclusion that it’s highly unlikely the virus could have leaked from the WIV.

Daszak also said American intelligence, which indicates researchers at the WIV became infected with COVID-like symptoms before the first known cases in December 2019, shouldn’t be trusted.

EcoHealth Alliance’s work researching bat-based coronaviruses in China was funded by a $3.7 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 2014, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The grant was terminated by the National Institutes of Health in April amid criticism over EcoHealth Alliance’s relationship with the WIV. The NIH said in a letter the nonprofit’s work in China did not align with “program goals and agency priorities.”

The NIH told EcoHealth Alliance in July it would restore the grant if it met certain conditions, one of which was to arrange for an independent team to investigate the WIV to determine if it had possession of the SARS-COV-2 virus prior to the first known cases in December 2019.

Daszak told NPR that the NIH’s conditions were “preposterous.”

“I’m not trained as a private detective,” Daszak said. “It’s not really my job to do that.” (RELATED: US Scientist With Close Ties To Wuhan Lab Discussed Manipulating Bat-Based Coronaviruses Just Weeks Before Outbreak)

However, the WIV still has an active Foreign Assurance on file with the NIH Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare, which enables it to continue receiving taxpayer funds to engage in animal research, according to the NIH Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare.

A NIH spokeswoman told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the WIV’s Foreign Assurance was approved on Jan. 9, 2019, and is currently set to expire on Jan. 31, 2024.

The spokeswoman did not confirm whether the WIV is currently receiving direct or indirect taxpayer funding for research activities involving animals. EcoHealth Alliance’s last known subgrant to the WIV was in May 2019, according to USASpending.Gov.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Quick note: Tech giants are snuffing us out. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense permenently banned us. Facebook, Twitter, Google search et al have shadowbanned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. Help us fight. Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW more than ever. Share our posts on social and with your email contacts.

Harvard Study: An Epidemic of Loneliness Is Spreading Across America

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The lockdowns sure haven’t helped.

Loneliness among Americans has been growing in recent years, but the policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically exacerbated the problem. A new report by Harvard University researchers finds that 36 percent of Americans are experiencing “serious loneliness,” and some groups, such as young adults and mothers with small children, are especially isolated.

Researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s “Making Caring Common” project analyzed data from an October 2020 online survey of 950 Americans. “Alarming numbers of Americans are lonely,” they conclude in their paper, and those surveyed “reported substantial increases in loneliness since the outbreak of the pandemic.”

Young adults are the loneliest group. According to the research findings, 61 percent of young people ages 18 to 25 reported feeling lonely “frequently” or “almost all the time or all the time” during the four weeks preceding the fall survey. Forty-three percent of these young adults indicated that their loneliness had increased since the pandemic and related lockdowns began. These results echo similar findings of other Harvard researchers who found that nearly half of young adults were showing signs of depression amid the pandemic response. And in August, the CDC reported that one in four young adults in this age range had contemplated suicide during the month of June.

Mothers with small children were another group experiencing high rates of loneliness according to the recent survey analysis, with more than half of mothers reporting serious loneliness. Forty-seven percent of these mothers said that their loneliness increased during the pandemic response.

While everyone has been forcibly cut off from normal social interaction as a result of government lockdown measures, social distancing mandates, and other public health orders, young people and mothers with small children may be particularly harmed by these policies. In many cases, older teenagers and young adults have been unable to meaningfully connect with their peers during school closures and remote learning plans. Additionally, social distancing requirements on many college campuses have halted normal social interaction and can contribute to loneliness and depression among this cohort. As a fall semester article in BU Today, a publication of Boston University, explained: “BU’s aggressive coronavirus safety protocols—no large groups, fewer in-person classes and meetings, and restrictions on the amount of people allowed in an elevator, laundry room, and even around a dining hall table—can equal loneliness.”

For mothers with small children, being disconnected from other mothers, as well as lacking in-person support from family members and friends, can take its toll and make days with little ones seem even longer and more intense. Additionally, as the Harvard researchers found, periodic daycare and school closures have made the last year particularly challenging for mothers.

In their paper, the researchers cite developmental psychologist, Niobe Way, who says: “We are in danger of alleviating one public health problem—the transmission of disease—while exacerbating another.” Indeed, economists have been pointing out these tradeoffs of the pandemic response since last spring. As FEE’s Antony Davies and James Harrigan wrote in April: “Regardless of whether we acknowledge them, tradeoffs exist. And acknowledging tradeoffs is an important part of constructing sound policy.”

Loneliness in America has been a mounting concern for decades. In his groundbreaking 2000 book, Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam documented the growing alienation of Americans, as previously robust aspects of civil society that fostered connection, such as bowling leagues, faded away.

More recent research showed that loneliness was worsening prior to the pandemic. In 2018, a joint Kaiser Family Foundation and Economist survey found that one in five Americans “often” or “almost always” felt lonely or socially isolated, and results from a large-scale Cigna report released in January 2020 found that three out of five Americans reported being lonely.

Lockdowns and related pandemic response measures amplified feelings of loneliness and isolation, as local businesses and organizations were shut down or forced to reduce capacity and change operating procedures. Restaurants, bars, coffee shops—even playgrounds—have been closed in many areas, limiting opportunities for social connection. Several states continue to restrict the number of people allowed in one’s own home, including Vermont where residents have been prohibited from interacting with anyone outside of their immediate household since November.

Not surprisingly, loneliness has deepened as a result of these lockdowns and restrictions that sever individuals from their communities, and mental health continues to deteriorate. Youth suicide and depression rates are increasing, and drug overdose deaths are climbing. The tradeoffs of these strict pandemic response policies are becoming increasingly clear.

The most obvious solution to the accelerating loneliness epidemic during the pandemic response is to lift the lockdowns and related public health policies that keep people cruelly separated from one another.

In their new paper, the Harvard researchers acknowledge the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on increasing rates of loneliness but continue to endorse the current policy response, including indicating that we “may need to enter another lockdown phase as new variants spread.” They argue for sweeping efforts to combat the loneliness epidemic both during and after the pandemic response.

While the Harvard researchers acknowledge that individuals can take some action to ameliorate loneliness by identifying and reversing their own negative feedback loops, they focus most of their attention on a “collective” response to loneliness in America.

Specifically, they criticize what they call “this age of hyper-individualism,” saying that we must “restore our commitment to each other and the common good.” To achieve this, the researchers recommend “national, state, and local public education campaigns” that highlight the loneliness epidemic. They recommend that schools, colleges, and workplaces provide more resources to combat loneliness, and they urge a much larger role of government in this process. “The federal government should greatly expand its commitment to national service for young people, and state and local governments can do much more to promote many forms of organized service that bring people together to work on common problems,” the researchers state.

More pressingly, the study authors explain that we must shift from “Americans’ focus on the self” toward “the common good.” The undermining of the individual in favor of the collective, or “common good,” typically means empowering government with more authority to try to fix social problems. As the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman said: “I think a major reason why intellectuals tend to move towards collectivism is that the collectivist answer is a simple one. If there’s something wrong, pass a law and do something about it… On the other hand, the individualistic or libertarian argument is a sophisticated and subtle one. If there’s something wrong with society, if there’s a real social evil, maybe you will make better progress by letting people voluntarily try to eliminate the evil.”

Still, the Harvard researchers are right to point out that the loneliness epidemic is a result of disconnection from community. Encouraging this community connection is a goal that can be best achieved through a robust civil society, or the non-governmental, voluntary institutions of our lives—such as extended family, church, clubs, sports leagues, and benefit societies—that have been tragically eroded at the same time that government has grown and taken on roles that were previously reserved for families and communities. An expanded role of government in trying to combat the loneliness epidemic, or any other social problem, will only make matters worse.

In his 1835 book, Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville reflected on the vitality of American civil society. He wrote:

“Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite. Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small; Americans use associations to give fêtes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the antipodes…”

Tocqueville warned that as these voluntary institutions and associations become usurped by government power, individuals slowly lose their free will. He wrote: “Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

The steady rise of government influence in areas that were previously the domain of civil society has been documented most recently by Howard Husock in his book, Who Killed Civil Society? The Rise of Big Government and Decline of Bourgeois Norms. Husock explains how non-governmental organizations and community nonprofits increasingly rely on government funding that can dilute their local impact. He writes: “Thousands of organizations, which were once independent of the government and funded by their communities, are instead government contractors now. Today, the U.S. government enters into some 350,000 contracts with 56,000 nonprofit organizations. In doing so, our federal government has changed not only the source of funding — it has changed the character of civil society and its ability to serve local communities best.”

The loneliness that many Americans currently feel is heartbreaking. Big government’s ascent prior to the pandemic, and the role of government in responding to the pandemic with coercive measures, have contributed to and exacerbated the loneliness epidemic. Relying less on government and more on the voluntary fabric of civil society can make us all happier, healthier, and more connected to each other and to our communities.

COLUMN BY

Kerry McDonald

Kerry McDonald is a Senior Education Fellow at FEE and author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom (Chicago Review Press, 2019). She is also an adjunct scholar at The Cato Institute and a regular Forbes contributor. Kerry has a B.A. in economics from Bowdoin College and an M.Ed. in education policy from Harvard University. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and four children. You can sign up for her weekly newsletter on parenting and education here.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: A Utopian Anal Swab for Covid? You have got to be kidding me.

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No, this is not political satire, it is happening in the CCP. Covid has a 99+% recovery rate but is being used to strike fear in the hearts of we the people. Is this just another way for tyrants to show how to make us submit to them? As government power grows the rights of we the people shrink.

In a WebMD article titled China Using Anal Swabs for COVID Testing Ralph Ellis reported:

Jan. 28, 2021 — China is not giving up on nasal or throat testing, but the country has adopted a new method for detecting the coronavirus: anal swabs.

Anal testing is being used so far only on select groups, mainly high-risk cases and people in quarantine. Some people who have been subjected to anal testing include passengers arriving in Beijing and a group of more than 1,000 schoolchildren and teachers who were thought to have been exposed to the virus, Forbes reported.

The use of anal swabs is limited because it’s invasive and inconvenient. If a stool sample cannot be obtained, a saline-soaked cotton swab about 1-2 inches long is inserted into the anus, with the sample tested for active traces of the virus.

Read more.

From face masks to social distancing to nose swabs to shutting downs businesses to anal swabs. When will this madness ever end? Government control of we the people is both using Covid as the cause in order for government to take control of every aspect of our lives.

It is time to say enough is enough.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: Drive-Thru Anal Swab for Covid-19? The Deep State’s ‘Great Reset’ takes its next logical step.

VIDEO: White House coronavirus adviser stumbles, struggles to explain similar virus numbers despite differing lockdown approaches

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Sweden was right.

But the failed, despotic Democrats have dug in and now want to make multiple masks mandatory.

White House coronavirus adviser struggles to explain similar virus numbers despite differing lockdown approaches

White House COVID-19 adviser Andy Slavitt appeared not to be able to explain why some states that don’t have strict responses to the pandemic, such as Florida, seemingly fare no worse than largely locked-down states like California.

By: Michael Lee, Washington Examiner, February 18, 2021:

“There’s so much of this virus that we think we understand, and we think we can predict, that’s just a little beyond our explanation,” Slavitt said when asked by MSNBC why Florida and California have similar COVID-19 numbers despite differences in policy responses. “What we do know is the more careful people are, the more they mask and social distance, and the quicker we vaccinate, the quicker it goes away and the less it spreads.”

Slavitt noted that variants make the virus hard to predict and warned that the country needs to remain vigilant.

“We’ve got to get better visibility into variants. We don’t know what role they play,” Slavitt said. “As we all have learned by this time, this is a virus that continues to surprise us. It’s very hard to predict, and, all around the country, we’ve got to continue to do a better job, and I think we are, but we’re not done yet.”

California has implemented the strictest lockdown policies in the country, according to a Wallet Hub analysis, while Florida remains one of the least restrictive states.

Despite frequent criticism of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s approach, the governor has shown little sign he plans on backing down. In a fiery speech Monday, DeSantis slammed updated CDC guidance that called for some schools to remain closed to in-person instruction and vowed to keep the doors to Florida’s schools open.

“What the CDC put out, 5 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, I wonder why they would do it then, was quite frankly a disgrace. It would require, if you actually follow that, closing 90% of schools in the United States,” DeSantis said. “We are open, we remain open, and we are not turning back.”

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Quick note: Tech giants are snuffing us out. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense permanently banned us. Facebook, Twitter, Google search et al have shadowbanned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. Help us fight. Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW more than ever. Share our posts on social and with your email contacts.

VIDEO: Kamala Harris Stammers Incoherently When Confronted About Biden ☭ Admin’s Failure to Reopen Schools

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Super spreader at a loss for words…..

There is no threat to children from the China virus. But the Democrats have taken them hostage and forced them to fear the outside world and even human faces. A generation of serial killers ……

TRAINWRECK: Kamala Harris Stammers Incoherently When Confronted About Biden Admin’s Failure to Reopen Schools (VIDEO)

By Cristina Laila, Gateway Pundit, February 17, 2021:

This was hard to watch.

Kamala Harris is the most unwanted and unpopular VP in modern history.

Harris fell apart Wednesday when confronted about the Biden Administration’s failure to reopen schools during an interview with Savannah Guthrie on NBC’s “TODAY.”

The CDC Director has already stated that there is data to suggest schools can reopen safely

But the Biden Administration is not listening to the CDC and is not ‘following the science’ because they are bowing down to toxic teachers unions.

The Biden Admin got major backlash after admitting their goal is to have “more than 50%” of K-8 schools open “one day a week” by April 30.

Kamala Harris had no answer for this and stammered incoherently.

This incompetent woman is taking head of state calls for dementia Joe.

We have no real leadership right now.

WATCH:

https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1362054333215494145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1362054333215494145%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F2021%2F02%2Ftrainwreck-kamala-harris-stammers-incoherently-confronted-biden-admins-failure-reopen-schools-video%2F

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Quick note: Tech giants are snuffing us out. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense permanently banned us. Facebook, Twitter, Google search et al have shadowbanned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. Help us fight. Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW more than ever. Share our posts on social and with your email contacts.

DeSantis Blasts CDC School Reopening Guidelines calling it a “DISGRACE”

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Boom. Watch Governor DeSantis blast the CDC and the Democrat Party for its lockdown policies. If President Trump doesn’t run in 2024, then Governor DeSantis is our candidate.

“If you actually follow them [it would require] closing 90% of schools in the United States. We are open, we remain open, and we are not turning back.”

Florida reported the lowest single day China COVID-19 cases in months.

DeSantis Blasts CDC School Reopening Guidelines, as FIU Brings Staff Back to Campus

By NBC, February 6, 2021

On the same day employees of Florida International University were asked to come back to campus, the governor of Florida took aim at the health and safety protocols the university is consulting as the basis for bringing its staff back.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines for reopening K-12 schools last week. In Florida, public schools have been open since October, with parents given the option of sending their kids to school or keeping them home for remote learning during this pandemic.

“What the CDC put out, 5:00 on a Friday afternoon — I wonder why they would do it then — was quite frankly a disgrace. It would require, if you actually follow that, closing 90% of schools in the United States. We are open, we remain open, and we are not turning back,” said Gov. Ron DeSantis, without explaining or detailing which part of the guidelines were objectionable.

The superintendents of Miami-Dade and Broward County Public Schools have each announced their support for the CDC guidelines, which are only recommendations.

In a phone call this afternoon, Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the guidelines are there to make it easier for schools to open, not to shut down schools that are already open. He and Broward Superintendent Robert Runcie have said their district schools are already following almost all of the CDC guidelines.

In a text message exchange Monday afternoon, Runcie said the only recommendation which causes some concern is the six-foot social distancing standard for children. He and Carvalho each agreed that keeping kids that far apart is nearly impossible, which is why their districts use the American Academy of Pediatrics standard of three feet of distance as long as everyone is wearing a mask.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Quick note: Tech giants are snuffing us out. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense permanently banned us. Facebook, Twitter, Google search et al have shadowbanned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. Help us fight. Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW more than ever. Share our posts on social and with your email contacts.

BREAKING VIDEO: Zuckerberg Takes ‘Anti-Vax’ Stance in Violation of Facebook’s Policy

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Project Veritas released a new video today provided by a Brave Facebook Insider exposing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s contradictory position when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines.

Here are some of the highlights from the video:

  • Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO in July 2020: “But I do just want to make sure that I share some caution on this [vaccine] because we just don’t know the long-term side effects of basically modifying people’s DNA and RNA…basically the ability to produce those antibodies and whether that causes other mutations or other risks downstream. So, there’s work on both paths of vaccine development.”
  • During a public live stream with Dr. Fauci in November 2020, Zuckerberg had a different take: “Just to clear up one point, my understanding is that these vaccines do not modify your DNA or RNA. So that’s just an important point to clarify.”
  • Facebook announced last week that they are “expanding [their] efforts to remove false claims on Facebook and Instagram about COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines and vaccines in general during the pandemic.”
  • Facebook said it would remove claims that vaccines change people’s DNA.
  • Facebook claims it wants people to “discuss, debate and share their personal experiences, opinions and views” as it pertains to the pandemic but will remove vaccine concerns from its platform that had once been expressed by their own CEO.

It is unclear if Facebook still stands by Zuckerberg’s concerns in July and whether or not the company would ban this video of Zuckerberg from its platforms because of vaccine policy violations.

Project Veritas continues to seek Brave Insiders working within Big Tech to come forward with more newsworthy information.

Contact us at VeritasTips@protonmail.com with tips that we should pursue.

You can also reach out through Signal: 914-653-3110.

©Project Veritas. All rights reserved.

Lockdown: Incoherent and Ineffective

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Our response to the Covid pandemic continues to be incoherent and ineffective. No matter how many interstate comparisons prove that lockdowns confer no permanent benefit, no matter how much economic devastation we endure and how many lives are ruined, we soldier on, refusing to learn from experience.

Our panic-driven approach was originally in reaction to an apparent overall death rate of 3% and the need to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed. But we now know that 82 studies worldwide have found a median death rate of 0.2% of all those infected by Covid and supplemental hospital units were mothballed.

Even more encouraging, the virus is not equally threatening to all. The mortality rate for people over 70 is 1000 times greater than for children, who are almost totally protected. In fact, over twice as many children have died from seasonal flu this year than from Covid.

The sparing of the young is of course a great blessing. Yet we continue to pursue policies of blanket restrictions as if all groups are at equal risk.

This is the folly addressed in the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD), authored by Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford epidemiologists, now signed by 50,000 medical practitioners and 664,000 concerned citizens worldwide. The declaration calls for “focused protection“ in place of the one-size-fits-all lockdowns that have wreaked havoc everywhere.

Societies are urged to concentrate isolation strategies on those most at risk: the elderly, obese, and already ill, who comprise the vast majority of fatalities. Those who would likely experience Covid as a flu-like infection, or nothing at all, follow basic prevention hygiene protocols but otherwise resume their lives.

Unfortunately, what should be a stimulus for rational scientific discovery and discussion has deteriorated into another of the partisan brawls Americans have come to despise. Fights break out over masks. Police block the entrance to gyms and bars. Protests over mandates become unruly.  Nut cases threaten public officials.

In this hyper-politicized environment, the right to peaceably disagree goes out the window.  Although epidemiology is normally not influenced by political ideology, the reliably left-wing media has been reflexively hostile. Google initially shadowbanned GBD.

Many scientists have resorted to name-calling and silencing rather than reasoned debate. One of the GBD authors was accused of “Trumpian epidemiology“ by a colleague. Another doctor charged the GBD was the work of “COVID-19 deniers“ similar to “creationists, HIV/AID denialists, and climate science deniers“. Meanwhile, 1300 epidemiologists signed a letter assuring that BLM protests were harmless but all the rest of us should self-quarantine.

Lockdown critics are frequently charged with a heartless over-emphasis on economics. But the UN estimates that 130 million additional people internationally will starve as a result of the economic damage resulting from lockdowns.

Moreover, the fixation on one disease at the expense of all others has severe consequences. Childhood diseases like diphtheria, pertussis, and polio are beginning to reappear because parents are over-focused on Covid. Deaths from heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are also trending up from patients’ reluctance to seek routine care.

Mental well-being is in steep decline. Seven in ten teenagers report struggling with their mental health and crisis hotlines are reporting a surge in suicide-related calls. Suicide deaths far outnumber Covid deaths among the young.

School shutdowns may be the most harmful and senseless of all. Since school children very rarely get sick from Covid, they neither endanger themselves nor are contagious to others. The spectacle of millions of children staying home or struggling with distance learning, because the teacher’s unions insist upon it, is an outrage.

The vaccine will help of course, but those expecting a permanent eradication of Covid anytime soon are likely to be disappointed. For starters, 46% of Americans, partly in response to the disparagement of the president who oversaw its development, intend to refuse the vaccine. Moreover, most flu-type viruses mutate freely so immunity, even when achieved, may not be permanent.

We’ll likely be dealing with the virus for some time yet and will need realistic science-based guidance. But science can’t do its job in an environment where anyone challenging the politically dominant status quo gets demeaned or canceled.

*****

Thomas C. Patterson, MD is a retired Emergency Medicine physician, Arizona state Senator and Arizona Senate Majority Leader in the ’90s. He is a former Chairman, Goldwater Institute.

VIDEO: Republican Governor Ron DeSantis Says ‘Lockdowner’ Biden Targeting Florida Despite Pandemic Success

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They hate DeSantis because he is so good and makes them look so bad. Everything they did failed – everything he did was a brilliant success.

America’s governor. Watch!

GOP Governor Ron DeSantis Says ‘Lockdowner’ Biden Targeting Florida Despite Pandemic Success

By Newsweek, February 14, 2021

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said Sunday during a Fox News interview that Florida’s housing and economic situation is “thriving,” which has prompted “lockdowner” Democrats like President Joe Biden to target the state’s success.

DeSantis reacted to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Rochelle Walensky after they floated ideas of pre-flight testing and domestic air travel restrictions—although the White House said they aren’t recommending such measures. DeSantis said many Democratic governors are “putting people out of business,” and are hoping to implement such punitive measures in states like Florida through federal restrictions.

“It would be unconstitutional, it would be a political attack against Florida,” he said during his television interview with host Maria Bartiromo. “If you look right now, you hear this debate about schools, Florida schools have been open the whole school year and every parent in Florida has the right to send their child to in-person instruction, every worker has the right to work and earn a living.”

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said Sunday during a Fox News interview that Florida’s housing and economic situation is “thriving,” which has prompted “lockdowner” Democrats like President Joe Biden to target the state’s success.

DeSantis reacted to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Rochelle Walensky after they floated ideas of pre-flight testing and domestic air travel restrictions—although the White House said they aren’t recommending such measures. DeSantis said many Democratic governors are “putting people out of business,” and are hoping to implement such punitive measures in states like Florida through federal restrictions.

“It would be unconstitutional, it would be a political attack against Florida,” he said during his television interview with host Maria Bartiromo. “If you look right now, you hear this debate about schools, Florida schools have been open the whole school year and every parent in Florida has the right to send their child to in-person instruction, every worker has the right to work and earn a living.”

“We focus on lifting people up,” he also said. “People view Florida as a place where they can follow their dreams. It is a free state.”

DeSantis placed heavy emphasis on Florida’s economy experiencing an upswing even though the pandemic began last March and April during what would have been prime vacation and tourism time. He reiterated “kids stay in school, home construction is up, home sales are up, economic growth” is booming.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Donald J. Trump’ trends on Twitter for Presidents Day

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Quick note: Tech giants are snuffing us out. You know this. Facebook, Twitter, Google et al have shadowbanned, suspended and in some cases deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here— it’s free and it’s critical NOW more than ever.

Is China Creating A New Master Race?

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Sounds eerily familiar…..

Is China Creating A New Master Race?

By Tyler Durden, Authored by Gordon Chang via The Gatestone Institute, Feb 13, 2021:

Bing Su, a Chinese geneticist at the state-run Kunming Institute of Zoology, recently inserted the human MCPH1 gene, which develops the brain, into a monkey. The insertion could make that animal’s intelligence more human than that of lower primates. Su’s next experiment is inserting into monkeys the SRGAP2C gene, related to human intelligence, and the FOXP2 gene, connected to language skills.

Has nobody in China seen Planet of the Apes?

Or maybe they have. “Biotechnology development in China is heading in a truly macabre direction,” writes Brandon Weichert of The Weichert Report in an article posted on the American Greatness website. In a communist society with unrestrained ambition, researchers are pursuing weird science. What happens when you mix pig and monkey DNA? Chinese experimenters can tell you. How about growing human-like organs in animals? Yes, they have done that as well.

Moreover, Beijing may already be engineering “super soldiers.” “U.S. intelligence shows that China has conducted human testing on members of the People’s Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities,” wrote then Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, in a December 3 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “China Is National Security Threat No. 1.”

It is not clear how far Chinese military researchers have gone. They are, however, advocating use of the CRISPR gene-editing tool to enhance human capabilities, and the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission is “supporting research in human performance enhancement and ‘new concept’ biotechnology.”

The People’s Liberation Army has gone all-in on gene editing of humans. As leading analysts Elsa Kania and Wilson VornDick report, there are “striking parallels in themes repeated by a number of PLA scholars and scientists from influential institutions.”

All these Chinese moves are meant to obtain “biological dominance.” “There are,” as Ratcliffe noted, “no ethical boundaries to Beijing’s pursuit of power.”

It is clear that the Communist Party is thinking about more than just soldiers. A Chinese researcher is also the first — and so far only — person to gene-edit human embryos that produced live births.

He Jiankui, while at Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, used the CRISPR-Cas9 tool to remove gene CCR5 to give twin girls, born in late 2018, immunity to HIV but perhaps also to enhance intelligence. The experiment evoked the eugenics program of the Third Reich to create a “master race.”

China is in the process of creating the “perfect Communist,” Weichert, also the author of Winning Space, told Gatestone. “China is run by a regime that believes in the perfectibility of mankind, and with the advent of modern genetic and biotechnology research, China’s central planners now have the human genome itself to perfect according to their political agenda.”

Chinese scientists already are on the road of “gene-doping” to make future generations smarter and more innovative than those in countries refusing to embrace these controversial methods. “What you are witnessing in China,” Weichert has written, “is the convergence of advanced technology with cutting-edge bio-sciences, capable of fundamentally altering all life on this planet according to the capricious whims of a nominally Communist regime.”

Shenzhen’s He, after an international uproar caused by news of his dangerous and unethical work, was fined and jailed for “illegally carrying out human embryo gene-editing,” but in the Communist Party’s near-total surveillance state, he obviously had state backing for his experiments.

He’s efforts are not isolated. Nature magazine’s news team reported in April 2015 that Chinese researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, in another world-first experiment, edited “non-viable” human embryos with CRISPR-Cas9. “A Chinese source familiar with developments in the field said that at least four groups in China are pursuing gene editing in human embryos,” the magazine’s website stated.

Beijing’s prosecution of He, therefore, looks like an attempt to cool down the furor and prevent the international scientific community from further inquiry into China’s activities.

Unfortunately, China’s advances in gene editing human embryos for super soldiers is persuading others they must do the same. Soon, for instance, there will be “Le Terminator.” The French government has just given approval for augmented soldiers. “We have to be clear, not everyone has the same scruples as us and we have to prepare ourselves for such a future,” declared French Minister for the Armed Forces Florence Parly.

Michael Clarke of Kings College London told the Sun, the British tabloid, there is now a biological competition fueled by China. Will we soon have, as the International Society for Military Ethics has dubbed it, a race of “homo robocopus”?

If we do, China will not be the only party to blame. “What is most disturbing about these endeavors is that China has gleaned access to CRISPR and advanced genetic and biotech research, thanks to their relationship with the United States and other advanced Western nations,” Weichert told Gatestone this month. “American research labs, biotech investors, and scientists have all striven to do research and business in China’s budding biotech arena explicitly because the ethical standards for research on this sensitive issue are so low.”

“This will prove to be a long-term strategic threat to the United States that few in Washington, on Wall Street, or in Silicon Valley understand,” Weichert says, referring to China’s rapid weaponization of biotechnology.

China’s regime does not have ethics or decency, is not bound by law, and does not have a sense of restraint. It does, however, have the technology to start a whole new species of genetically enhanced, goose-stepping humans.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. Quick note: Tech giants are snuffing us out. You know this. Facebook, Twitter, Google et al have shadowbanned, suspended and in some cases deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here— it’s free and it’s critical NOW more than ever.

VIDEO: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis SLAMS Media Over Tampa Bay Fans Celebrating Over Super Bowl Win

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More outstanding work by Governor Ron DeSantis. He handles the MSM beautifully. Never backs down. What a fighter. That’s why he can win in 2024. Watch the whole press conference below.

The media- otherwise known as the Ministry of Misery – punishes the happy, the free, the American.

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1359732409256841216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1359732409256841216%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgellerreport.com%2F2021%2F02%2Fflorida-gov-ron-desantis-slams-media-over-tampa-bay-fans-celebrating-over-super-bowl-win.html%2F

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis SLAMS Media Over Tampa Bay Fans Celebrating Over Super Bowl Win

By 911.com, February 11, 2021

Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans were on top of the world after Tom Brady and company mopped the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV in Tampa.

Fans flooded to the streets to celebrate, prompting backlash from democrat leaders and members of the media, who were seemingly outraged at the large crowds gathered during a pandemic.

On Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was asked if he was worried that not enough was being done to stop the spread of Coronavirus during the celebrations.

“The media’s worried about that, obviously. You guys really love that,” DeSantis scoffed.

“You don’t care as much if it’s a ‘peaceful protest’… and then it’s fine. You don’t care as much if they’re celebrating a Biden election. You only care about it if it’s people you don’t like. So, I’m a Bucs fan. I’m damn proud of what they did on Sunday night.”

“..in terms of the UK variant, here’s what we know, we know, based on all the evidence, that these vaccines are going to be effective against that,” he said. “And that’s really the main concern, I mean we’re getting our seniors vaccinated. We’ve not seen any data, or any evidence to suggest that these vaccines are not effective and so if we get the seniors vaccinated.”

RELATED ARTICLE: Conservatives slam Biden administration over possible restrictions on Florida travel due to China virus fearmongering

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Quick note: Tech giants are snuffing us out. You know this. Facebook, Twitter, Google et al have shadowbanned, suspended and in some cases deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here— it’s free and it’s critical NOW more than ever.

‘Florida Is Going To Kill All Of Us’: Sunny Hostin Blasts Ron DeSantis After Super Bowl Partiers Ditch Masks

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Governor Ron DeSantis must continue to respond forcefully to these unhinged and slanderous attacks by the MSM. The MSM knows that DeSantis can win in 2024, so they will attempt to destroy his character.

‘Florida Is Going To Kill All Of Us’: Sunny Hostin Blasts Ron DeSantis After Super Bowl Partiers Ditch Masks

By Daily Wire, February 8, 2021

Sunny Hostin lashed out Monday at Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, saying, “Florida is going to kill all of us.”

Hostin blamed DeSantis for Florida’s “woefully inadequate” response to the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting on ABC’s “The View” that his move to lift restrictions could turn Sunday’s Super Bowl in Tampa Bay into a “super-spreader”

Hostin began by saying that she intended to continue taking precautions, but that she had been concerned by the number of people who had ignored social distancing and mask guidelines during post-game parties in Tampa Bay.

“I got to tell you, in watching 22,000 fans in the stadium yesterday — most wearing masks, but then afterwards revelers running all around without masks — I just kept on thinking, super-spreader event, super-spreader event, super-spreader event,” Hostin said.

She went on to say that DeSantis had lifted restrictions, a move that she believed to be ill-advised.

“I thought, you know, Florida is going to kill all of us,” she continued, noting that wearing masks still appeared to be a political divide. “There should be no reason why Governor DeSantis has been so woefully inadequate in terms of protecting the people not only of Florida, but the people of the United States. Imagine all those — those people, those 14,500 ticket buyers who are going to fly back home to their community and infect other people. I thought it was despicable and disgusting.”

RELATED ARTICLE: Ron DeSantis on Going Maskless at Super Bowl: ‘How the Hell am I Going to Drink a Beer?’

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Quick note: Tech giants are snuffing us out. You know this. Facebook, Twitter, Google et al have shadowbanned, suspended and in some cases deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here— it’s free and it’s critical NOW more than ever.

FLORIDA: Tampa Mayor sending police after people who didn’t wear a facemask at Super Bowl?

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It appears that Democrat Jane Castor, the Mayor of Tampa, Florida, is coming after those, like Governor Ron DeSantis (see Tweet below), who did not wear a face mask at the Super Bowl game.

Watch:

It appears that Mayor Castor is targeting Governor Ron DeSantis. Here’s why:

This is tyranny in its most transparent form. This is using the pandemic to impose a police state upon those who just wanted to drink their beer and enjoy the Tampa Bay Bucs win over the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Democrat Party and Biden are now officially The Fourth Reich.

They are now exposed for what they really are, enemies of We The People.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: It’s Just A Mask (Mirrored)

The Misadventures of a Pro-life Senator

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Hadley Arkes on Sen. Ben Sasse, who champions pro-life bills by promising Democrats they won’t affect abortion access, an appeal that fools no one.  

In the British comic Review in the 1960s, Beyond the Fringe, a commanding officer in the Royal Air Force sought to persuade a pilot to go on a kamikaze mission.  “Smedley,” he said, “we need someone at this moment to make a [Grand] Futile Gesture.”

Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska has made his career with Grand Futile Gestures, not because his policies have been wanting in merit, but because he has shown little interest in doing the grinding work of a legislator in working out bills in committee and persuading his colleagues.

When he landed in the Senate in 2015, he quickly took hold of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.  That is the sequel to our Born-Alive Infants’ Protection Act (2002), the bill that sought to protect the child who survived an abortion.  The new bill would restore the serious penalties that had been stripped from the original Act.

Sasse rushed to be the sponsor of the bill, which would pass by hefty margins in a Republican-controlled House in 2015 and 2018.   But Sasse never seemed able to do the work that would bring the bill to the floor of the Senate for a vote.   He was finally able to get the bill to the floor in February 2020, when the Democrats had control of the House, and there was no chance of passing it.  The bill gathered 56 votes in favor of bringing it to the floor, but under the rules of a filibuster,  60 votes were needed to put the bill on the floor for the decisive vote.

Sasse had made a fine, impassioned speech in favor of the bill,  which he knew would be mainly a flying of the flag.  His object was just to preserve the awareness of the bill as an ongoing part of our public business.  Over the past several years some of us have made attempts to sharpen and improve that bill, but our friends among other senators have been reluctant to make any move without the consent of the sponsor of the bill.  And yet that sponsor was not to be found.  He was usually elsewhere, giving speeches.

Sasse’s persistence then has been offset by his inattentiveness, but that persistence still deserves praise.  He introduced the bill anew on January 26th, with the Republicans no longer in control of the Senate.   He was forced, then, to bring the bill forth in the mayhem of the Vote-a-Rama:  The Democrats were trying to pass a massive budget as a matter of “budgetary reconciliation,” requiring only a majority vote (no need to get 60).

The occasion triggered a host of amendments on all kinds of subjects, as senators sought to tack their own pet measures on a bill bound to pass.  But amendments could be ruled out if they were thought to have only a tenuous connection to the budget.  And Sasse’s amendment was indeed ruled out; it could not come to a vote.

Sasse made once again a moving case for the bill. “Infanticide,” he said, “is what the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act is actually about. Are we a country that protects babies that are alive, born outside the womb after having survived a botched abortion?”

Sasse put his accent there by appealing to people on the other side that this bill was simply about “protecting babies that have already been born and are outside the womb.”  But in making that appeal he went overboard and gave an account of the bill that was at odds with the purpose that had brought forth the bill.  And so Sasse found himself insisting to his colleagues that “this bill has nothing to do with abortion itself. Nothing in this bill changes the slightest letter of Roe v. Wade. Nothing touches abortion access in this bill.”

But that appeal to the other side fools no one.  The Democrats understand that this modest bill is of course about abortion.  The strategy of the first Born-Alive Act in 2002 was to lure people from the other side by showing the reach of that right to abortion, a reach that makes even pro-choicers recoil.

And from there we might start rolling back that practice of abortion step by step.  We would ask: What was different about that child five minutes before it was born – or five days, five weeks, five months?  The other side understood that their position could come unraveled.  On that point they were never fooled, and we had never sought to fool them.

But our deeper purpose was to establish that this matter was not the sole business of the courts.  We sought to remind people of the constitutional grounds on which Congress may indeed legislate on this matter and act directly to protect unborn children.  We invoked a key line from Chief Justice Marshall in the classic case of Cohens v. Virginia (1822), when he remarked that any question arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States may rightly come within the reach of the judicial branch of the federal government.

And we then asserted the corollary:

If the Supreme Court can articulate new “rights” under the Constitution, the legislative branch must be able to vindicate the same rights under the same Clause in the Constitution where the Court claims to have found them.  And in filling out those rights, the Congress, at the same time, may mark their limits.  The one thing that should not be tenable under this Constitution is that the Court may articulate new rights – and then assign to itself a monopoly of the legislative power in shaping those rights.

A pro-life Republican Congress will not summon the conviction to legislate directly to protect babies in wombs until the members of Congress understand again that they do, in fact, bear the authority to do precisely that.  The score:  Ben Sasse fools no one on the other side, while he distracts his colleagues, and even the pro-lifers, from what they need to know in getting on with their work.

COLUMN BY

Hadley Arkes

Hadley Arkes is the Ney Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus at Amherst College and the Founder/Director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights & the American Founding. His most recent book is Constitutional Illusions & Anchoring Truths: The Touchstone of the Natural Law. Volume II of his audio lectures from The Modern Scholar, First Principles and Natural Law is now available for download.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2021 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

The Lockdown Brain is Locked Down

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It is a Sunday morning at Buffalo Ridge Park in Northeast Phoenix. The parking lot is full. Children play on city supplied appliances, sucking their thumbs, sliming up the swings and slides with spittle that they share with others, and having a wonderful time.

People are walking their dogs. Their dogs sniff each other and their droppings. Owners pet their dogs and the dogs of others with whom they greet and converse.

I remember the words of one of my physicians after I had major intestinal surgery. Between the surgery and the necessary weeks of antibiotics, the colony of friendly gut bacteria so essential to health had been completely upended. One particular bacterium had gained ascendency on the others, the dreaded C-dif.

Recommendations were to take probiotics, which did little. An additional recommendation was to get a dog “because they are so good at spreading bacteria.” It worked for both the new dog and myself. I love that dog and his bacteria.

Buffalo Ridge is also known for Frisbee golf. It is busy today, with dozens of people touching plastic discs and throwing them into a chain-like cage. No one is wearing a mask as people reach into the common cage to retrieve their Frisbees.

On the ball diamond, a father is teaching his young son some baseball essentials. A bit further away, a teenage boy is pitching to a friend with a catcher’s mitt. The boy is trying to try to throw some breaking stuff. On occasion, he goes to his mouth for moisture before grasping a now filthy ball. He is having a great time. The ball makes a satisfying smack as it hits leather.

My son and I sit on a bench near the basketball court. My son is a low functioning adult autistic in his mid-thirties. After a walk around the environs, he likes to sit in the warm sun and tap the bench.

A young girl tries out some pink roller skates on the concrete basketball court in front of us. She falls down some, getting her hands good and dirty. Her grandfather picks her up and puts her on his shoulders. She puts her hands on his face and neck. Everyone is happy.

Then I notice the basketball nets, which are the source of the photograph above. It is locked with FIVE PADLOCKS, just to be sure that nobody is permitted to play basketball.

But with baseballs, swings and slides, Frisbees, and multiple dogs in motion, what is the deadly risk in basketball?  Who knows? The “authorities” know, the people under the command of the Lord Mayor of Phoenix!

The net is subjected to constant UV rays, as is the concrete. It is outside. What is the risk?

You might say, the ball is commonly touched. Well, so are the Frisbees, the swings, the slides, the dogs, and the baseballs. Besides, how does the city parks department know that there might not be solo basketball players wanting to perfect their fade away jump shot?

The teenage boys that typically play here are simply not part of the at-risk population. Hitting their heads on the concrete is a substantially greater risk. But they must be protected by the city of Phoenix from a super spreader event, a game of basketball, outside, in the warm sun.

That is what is so strange about the application of lockdown measures. Most are entirely arbitrary and make no sense. The tiny tyrants ranging from the state level down to the city level, just make arbitrary decisions on the basis of…their whim.

They do it in the name of science.  You know, backed up by all those peer-reviewed studies that demonstrate the deadly nature of playing basketball, outside in the sun. I am sure you have heard of them.

They have the population so frightened that one commonly sees solo hikers, bikers, and drivers wearing masks.  Nothing is quite so deadly as to suck in deadly Covid between Wickiup and Los Vegas.  Of course, getting closer than six feet at seventy miles an hour, the risk of death by collision is far greater than the risk of viral infection.

The multiple locks on the chain basketball net are a metaphor. It represents that supporters of lockdown policies have their brains locked down. 

In the early stages of this pandemic, it was reasonable to give authorities a break. They really did not know what they were dealing with and health officials uttered many confusing and contradictory statements. It is better to use “an abundance of caution”, the popular phrase of the time. But when it came to harming society and the economy, no such caution was used.

But we now know most of those measures did little to stop the spread. States with few restrictions often show less of the virus than those states with stringent measures.

Moreover, it has generated a set of policies that have undermined faith in government, which perhaps is a good thing. We see a lot of that in California with policies such as it is Ok to mingle at a strip club, but dangerous to go to church. Or, we will put restrictions on indoor dining, but lift them when infectious rates are higher than when first imposed. You know, those kinds of policies.

One of the dictums of good medicine, is “at first, do no harm.” But they did grave harm to the public. They wrecked the economy, and we are doing so much deficit spending, we will be lucky if they don’t wreck the currency and societal stability itself. They destroyed dreams and livelihoods, but the virus still spread.

They propagated the myth that government action can stop a virus rather than being more modest in what they both knew and could actually do. Perhaps they can delay spread, but even that now is questionable  How did that bending the curve work out? We are not even sure how long the vaccines provide protection, whether they are effective against variants of the virus or preventing even the spreading of the virus. Sometimes it is better to say you don’t know, rather than spread false impressions based on ever changing bluster.

They so frightened people, that often those with conditions other than the Wuhan virus, don’t seek medical attention, and die because of it.

Drug addiction, loneliness, and despair have taken a toll.

But the lockdown mind, is itself, locked down. Impervious to new data or experience, it clings to arbitrary authoritarian rule. At base, it wants to substitute its judgments for our own decision making. Yet, we are the people who have greater information about our personal conditions of life than they can ever possess. And, we are in the best position to determine the necessary trade-offs of our decisions and the consequences of those decisions.

Just give us the best information you have and let us deal with the nuances of decision-making. The government should not wreck our lives to protect us.

We know that those over seventy, and particularly those with breathing issues, heart issues, being overweight or diabetic, have much greater risks. This population needs protection and this population has the common sense to protect itself. But this population is unlikely to be playing basketball at 10 AM outside, at the park.

To stop healthy teenagers from playing is not showing an abundance of caution, it is a gesture without substance. That, unfortunately, is the hallmark, of the lockdown mentality.

For those in a panic, we encourage you to take whatever precautions you feel necessary to protect yourself. That is your right. However, do not impose by force your irrational panic on the rest of us.

Let the kids play basketball. Just tell them to wash their hands afterward.

Lockdowns Have Depleted Capital in All Forms

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When lockdowns first happened, my initial thought was geeky, and only later did I begin to realize the implications for human rights and liberties.

My thought was: this is going to be devastating for future capital investment. The basis of my fear was the knowledge that in almost all poor countries, property rights are insecure, particularly for capital goods. These are goods that are produced to make other goods (the “produced means of production,” in the classic formulation by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk). Their existence and protection is a key to prosperity. They enable more complex economic structures – the extended order, in F.A. Hayek’s phrase. It’s the basis of hiring and investment, and the foundation of wealth production.

In the normal course of economic life, capital structures are constantly adapting to changed conditions. Changes in available technology, consumer demand, labor pools, and other conditions require entrepreneurs to stay constantly on the move. They need the freedom to act based on the expectation that their decisions matter within a market framework in which there is a test for success or failure. Without this ability, writes Ludwig Lachmann, “a civilized economy could not survive at all.”

When governments attack capital by making it less secure, denying its own volition over how it is deployed, or it comes to be depleted through some other shock like a natural disaster, capital cannot do the work of creating wealth. This is a major reason for poverty. Start a business, make some money, employ some people, and a powerful person or agency comes along and steals it all. People get demoralized and give up. Society can’t progress under such conditions. Take it far enough and people end up living hand to mouth.

Lockdowns seem focused on expenditures and consumption but fundamentally they attack capital. The restaurant, the theater, the stadium, the school, the means of transport, all are forced into idleness. They cannot return a profit to the owners. It’s a form of theft. All that you have done to save and work and invest is voided.

That investors and entrepreneurs would lose faith in the rule of law – and thereby the security of their rights – was my main worry about lockdowns. Before lockdowns, life was functioning normally for so very long, decades and decades. Restaurants and hotels stayed up, operating according to their owners’ wishes. People could make plans and invest across state and national boundaries, never thinking that they could be prevented from traveling. A new theater could open and rent out space for concerts or other performances. A band could form and travel here and there and arrange bookings. Large conferences could be put on in cities all over the country, and there was nary a thought of the possibility that some politician would just decide to shut it down.

Starting March 8, 2020, all that changed. The mayor of Austin, Texas, shut down South by Southwest, forcibly canceling 100,000 contracts for flights, hotels, and conference participation. It seemed unbelievable to me at the time. Surely there would be a flurry of lawsuits and the courts would intervene to call the mayor’s actions despotic. The lesson would be learned and such a thing would not happen again in America for a very long time, if ever. We do have a Fifth Amendment that rules out such “takings” without due process, and as a general principle we believe in the right to run enterprises.

To my shock, this was just the beginning. Travel ceased. Schools shut down. Businesses were forcibly closed and events we had taken for granted just weeks before were deemed illegal. The churches were padlocked. Courts closed. You know the rest. By March 16, the buzzing, happy, progressing world of enterprise and creativity was shut down by governments. The politicians locked us down. People were panicked too but once rationality struggled to make a return, the law stood in the way of normalcy.

All of this amounts to an attack on economic networks and capital infrastructure. Investment plunged during the great suppression. These days, private investment in the United States is back to 2018 levels but I wonder about the long-term economic effects. Do we expect “snap lockdowns” in the future such as that experienced by Perth, Australia, last week? A writer for the Washington Post thinks they are just fantastic:

It may seem strange to act so aggressively for a single case, but we Australians complied. There were no complaints of infringing on freedoms. No marches against masks. My city of Perth came to a standstill. The roads were quiet, and our beaches were deserted. A trip to the supermarket for essential groceries saw everyone wearing a mask — for the first time. Other states restricted travel of West Australians, desperate to keep the virus out.

The subsequent two days didn’t bring a rush of cases that we feared; instead, for the first two days of lockdown, no new cases of covid-19 were detected. Residents of other countries might think this was overkill; in truth, that’s how a proper pandemic response should look.

Under the conditions, how is planning possible? You have dinner reservations, a party planned, a wedding with contracts, a business meeting, a concert, a delivery scheduled, or anything at all, and everything can be closed for an indefinite period of time. This could happen any time day or night, all on the authority of government officials and all because of a positive PCR test. Australia is widely celebrated as a success but is it a success when any state within Australia can fall to totalitarian control at the drop of a hat, in a country that has locked its citizens within its borders and locked visitors out, thus smashing the whole of the tourist industry?

Do we really want to live in this world? And also a relevant question: what does this do to the ability to plan and invest in the future? There is the thing called “time preference” which refers to the willingness of individuals to put off current consumption for the future. A low time preference is essential for building a progressing economy and social order and it is contingent on a stable and predictable regime that doesn’t randomly invade people’s rights. When arbitrary power comes along to pillage people’s property, inhibit their freedom of movement, and restrict their associations, the effect is to make planning for the future less possible and hence disincentivize it. In effect, you encourage people to live for the moment rather than planning for the future. Hope is replaced by nihilism.

Lockdowns also attacked other forms of capital: professional, educational, and social. About one-third of workers in America started working from home. For many, the word working should be in quotes. Life changed dramatically. Forget the commutes, the traffic, the office environment, the waits for the elevator, the lunch hour, the after-hours cocktails with friends. Instead, work became about laptops, houseshoes, all-day snacks, afternoon drinking, and binging Netflix in the background. Laziness became too easy.

Maybe this was viable for a few weeks. But after several months, it became obvious that people’s personal capital was under attack. Some people could continue to receive a paycheck while staring at a screen while others have to hustle, go to work, cut the meat and stock the shelves, check out the customers, slog around the hospital, paint the houses and do the yardwork, serve people where dining was allowed, and so on. Still, others were forcibly put out of work (movie theaters, the arts, conference venues, and so on). Whether you could deploy your labors to your benefit depended entirely on the exigencies of the planning elites.

All this terrible disruption has shattered people’s confidence in the system and rattled people’s sense of their own value. Lockdowns have taken their toll on our confidence in the law and our optimism that we live in a world in which our persons and property are safe from invasion by political elites.

A very practical example of a form of investment concerns the decision to have children. Kids have been locked out of their schools for a year, depleting educational capital. One million mothers have left the workforce to care for kids, depleting professional capital. Three-quarters of families have said they feel intense stress. Early on after the lockdowns began, people were predicting a new baby boom.

Not so much anymore. Now there is growing wonder whether people will decide not to have children because of the burden, the lack of educational security, the possibility that this whole nightmare could happen again and leave parents with impossible circumstances yet again. Then there is the deeper question of whether we really want to bring children into a world in which they could be so brutalized as they were in 2020. Perhaps this accounts for why births in Italy alone plunged 22% since lockdowns.

The same fear is expressed by many capitalists. Why open a restaurant if it can be shut down? Why build a hotel if travel restrictions can leave it empty for months and even years? If you don’t have confidence in a stable legal regime for the future, what can one say about whether investing in anything physical or that depends on customers coming and going is really a good idea? Do we really want to open a factory that can be closed at any time by decree?

Outside of a major war, it is hard to recall a time when government policies have so seriously roiled business practices, economic structures, and personal lives as much as lockdowns have, not only in the US but all over the world. The consequences will be felt for many years in the future.

What we need today more than anything is a guarantee, an ironclad guarantee from our leaders that nothing like this can ever happen again. To make that promise credible we also need a flurry of frank admissions that they made terrible mistakes this time, detailing what they were, and give us proof that there are legal means to stop the next guy in that office from locking people down yet again. We need the rule of law to once again protect essential rights. If we do not get that, we will continue to see people lose hope and confidence in the future, and that could have a devastating long-term effect on prosperity and social peace.

*****

This article was first published on February 6, 2021 at AIER, American Institute for Economic Research and is reproduced with permission.

Are No-Fault Divorces Destroying The Ideal of Marriage Between One Man and One Woman?

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I have been married to my wife and life partner for 55 years. Sadly, I am the exception rather than the rule.

QUESTION: Why haven’t we made it a priority to support, promote and reward marriage as between one man and one woman, till death do them part?

The first recorded evidence of a marriage ceremony uniting one woman and one man dates from circa 2350 B.C., in Mesopotamia.

The family is the bed rock of any culture and the highest ideal of any society. Marriage is more than a bond between one man and one woman. It is a spiritual, social and cultural construct that requires faith, trust and fidelity forever.

There are many things that destroy a marriage, and with it the family. Among them are:

  • Government policies.
  • Moral decay.
  • Cultural decay.
  • The destruction of the “sanctity of marriage” as between one man and one woman.

Government Policies

One of the government policies that has lead to the destruction of marriage as between one man and one woman, and with it the family, is no-fault divorces.

LegalZoom.com defines no-fault divorce as follows:

A no-fault divorce is premised on the idea that one spouse does not have to prove the breakdown of the marriage is the other spouse’s fault, either based on their behavior or mental state.

This idea that no-one is at fault is a big lie. The truth is that either the husband or wife or both are at fault. Placing the fault is a way of punishing the wrong doer. It is a way of preserving the institution and sanctity of marriage.

The following states have no-fault divorce laws. In these states, people do not have the option of asserting the other person is at fault for the divorce.

  • California
  • Colorado
  • District of Columbia
  • Florida
  • Hawaii
  • Indiana
  • Iowa
  • Kansas
  • Kentucky
  • Michigan
  • Minnesota
  • Missouri
  • Montana
  • Nebraska
  • Nevada
  • Oregon
  • Washington
  • Wisconsin

According to LegalZoom.com:

In the rest of the country, you may file for divorce either asserting one of several legal fault grounds or you may file for a no-fault divorce. Of course, every state has its own statutes governing divorce, but generally speaking, legal fault grounds include:

  • Addiction or chemical dependency
  • Adultery
  • Bigamy
  • Desertion or abandonment
  • Impotence
  • Imprisonment of one of the parties to the marriage (and, in some states, criminal convictions)
  • Marriage between close relatives (as defined by the statutes of each state)
  • Marriage obtained by force or fraud
  • Mental abuse or mental cruelty
  • Mental illness
  • Mental incapacity at the time of the marriage
  • Physical abuse or physical cruelty

The Role of the Church and Santified Marriage

The notion of marriage as a sacrament, and not just a contract, can be traced to St. Paul who compared the relationship of a husband and wife to that of Christ and his church.

Ephesians 5:23, 25, 28–31 reads:

“The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. . . .

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;. . .

“So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.

“For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.

“For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh”

Government Gets Involved in Marriage

To understand the history behind the massive and long term movement to infiltrate our institutions and government to destroy the family and marriage watch the below video.

WATCH: The Marxist-Inspired Evil. It’s all about sex.

Marriage began its downfall when government got involved. Before government involvement marriage, “was a private affair, an agreement between families that didn’t require government approval.”

According to the Ancestry.com article Marriage Licenses: More Than Just Permission to Wed:

Marriage licenses are a relatively new invention, dating only to the 19th century.

[ … ]

States started requiring a license and certificate because marriages have legal ramifications, affecting property, inheritance, and taxes. Couples needed to prove they were unmarried and of marriageable age (usually over 18), sharing some key details to get the go-ahead to wed. And in the 1930s, several U.S. states passed “gin marriage” laws, in response to Prohibition-era worries that people would enter into hasty marriages while under the influence of alcohol. They required couples to wait several days between receiving their license to wed and getting married.

Today government, with the approval of the U.S. Supreme Court, allows men to marry  men and women to marry women. Both concepts have been tried before and failed. Only one man and one woman, since the time of Adam and Eve, have been considered the bedrock of marriage. Without marriage between one man and one woman, for life, there can only be heartbreak and sorrow.

Our uniquely American culture was based upon the ideal of marriage as between one man and one woman. Divorce was considered not just a failure but a threat to our culture and society. Divorce today is heralded by many in Hollywood as a badge of honor. If you haven’t been divorced you ain’t woke enough.

Woe upon  the current culture of infidelity, sinfulness and evil.

Time to bring back marriage as only between one man and one woman. Damn be those who think otherwise for they are doing the work of satan to destroy families.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

Muslim Brotherhood Supporter Named Veterans Administration Secretary

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The U.S. Senate just confirmed Denis McDonough to be the new Secretary of the Veterans Administration.

McDonough has a long history of openly supporting jihadis while in public office.

The counter-terrorism policies and strategies created under his watch as Deputy National Security Advisor and Chief of Staff under President Obama demonstrate his overt support for individuals and entities who openly call for the overthrow of the U.S. government and the destruction of liberty and innocent life.

McDonough’s seditious and unlawful actions are unprecedented in their brazenness and blatant violation of his oath and the law.

For instance, as the Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama, McDonough went to the Muslim Brotherhood’s mosque, the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) in Sterling, Virginia with senior U.S. leaders including FBI, DHS, NSC, etc. to PRAISE its imam.

The ADAMS Center imam is Mohamed Magid, a Muslim Brotherhood leader.

See the video of McDonough’s speech at ADAMS HERE. (By the way, Denis McDonough lied when he said Thomas Jefferson held “the first Iftar dinner at the White House.”)

For years, Muslim Brother Imam Mohamed Magid served as the Vice President and then President of one of North America’s largest Muslim Brotherhood organizations, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

ISNA was identified by the Department of Justice as a Muslim Brotherhood organization which directly funded Hamas leaders and organizations overseas.

The evidence was revealed in the largest terrorism financing trials ever successfully prosecuted in American history – US v Holy Land Foundation (HLF), Northern District of Texas (Dallas), 2008.

You can see ISNA’s financial transactions sending money to the designated Foreign Terrorist Organization Hamas, entered into evidence at the HLF trial HERE.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a designated terrorist organization in several nations, and the U.S. House and Senate both have bills pending to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group in America.  See the bill HERE.

So either Denis McDonough is grossly ignorant and incompetent, as well as criminally negligent for not knowing/understanding basic facts in evidence about ISNA and the Muslim Brotherhood, or he was and is wittingly complicit in aiding and abetting enemies of the United States in violation of his Oath and federal law.

COLUMN BY

John Guandolo is a US Naval Academy graduate, served as an Infantry/Reconnaissance officer in the United States Marines and is a combat veteran, served as a Special Agent in the FBI from 1996-2008, and was recruited out of the FBI by the Department of Defense to conduct strategic analysis of the Islamic threat. He is the President and Founder of Understanding the Threat (UTT).

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Spain: Leftist politician praises Islamic al-Andalus, accuses Spanish monarchy of ‘genocide’

Indonesia detains Muslim woman from UK on terror suspect list, plans to deport her back to Britain

This just in: ‘Islam does not support terrorism, it condemns it’

The use of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to exonerate Islam from any connection to ISIS

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

WATCH: “Dysphoric” How Gender Identity Ideology Harms Women And Girls

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Dysphoria is a profound state of unease or dissatisfaction. It is the opposite of euphoria. In a psychiatric context, dysphoria may accompany depression, anxiety, or agitation.

‘Dysphoric’ is a four-part documentary series on the rise of Gender Identity Ideology, its effects on women and girls – especially in developing countries.

WATCH: ‘Dysphoric’

Dysphoric: A Four-Part Documentary Series Part 01

Dysphoric: A Four-Part Documentary Series Part 02

Dysphoric: A Four-Part Documentary Series Part 03

Dysphoric: A Four-Part Documentary Series Part 04

Synopsis:

In this dystopian world where misogyny is rampant, and womanhood is commodified, being female comes at a cost. Corporates capitalise on women’s bodies blurring the lines of biological sex, and profiting from the emperically untested pseudo-science of queer theory.

This gaslighting is aided by the complicity of media, academia, legal and the political world. It is no surprise that young girls are fleeing womanhood like a house on fire. The past decade has seen a steep rise in the number of young girls seeking to transition by undergoing life threatening, irreversible procedures. ‘Dysphoric’ is a four-part documentary series on the rise of Gender Identity Ideology, its effects on women and girls – especially in developing countries.

The film explores gender transition, the permanent medical side-effects of hormones and surgeries, the propaganda by ‘woke’ corporations that glorifies thousands of stereotypical gender presentations coalesced as fashion, a surge in pronoun policing; language hijacking that calls women ‘menstruators’, and the many hurdles women face while trying to question this modern-day misogyny.

The film amplifies the voices of detransitioners, clinicians, psychiatrists, sociologists, feminists, academics and concerned citizens. ‘Dysphoric’ was made over the course of a year during COVID lockdown, amid cancellations.

Your support is appreciated: http://www.paypal.me/vaishax For more information: www.limesodafilms.com or email limesodafilms@gmail.com.

©LimesOdaFilms. All rights reserved.

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