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How to Cope in the Midst of Crisis

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The other day I found myself in a defiant mood. It’s not my default position, these days. Most often, I adopt a ‘I’ll ignore the government and every subsidiary authority and every captured agency or institution, and get on with my life’ attitude. I imagine myself floating on a quiet waterway in a small dinghy, away from the turbulence of a stormy sea. I talk to the strawberries in my veggie patch as they flower and the tiny berries grow; I walk and play with the dog, a source of great and genuine joy; I buy bread and sausages for the Lions Club sausage sizzle; I read from the Western canon of literature; I race in the SuperVets class at the local cycling club; I learn to recite a Psalm.

Most days, this gets me through.

Not this day. This day, the undercurrent of troubling developments caused a ripple on the surface. The eddies of censorship (see Australian Government proposed bill on Misinformation) and globalist health technocracy power grabs (as explained here by Brownstone Institute scholar David Bell) tossed my little boat about. The digital ID and ‘skills passport’ wind from government ministers stopped me from being able to slumber in the stern, unconcerned. Each of these things are big deals – big solid bricks about to be cemented into the wall around our freedoms.

Who can command these waves and the winds that toss us about? As my general vague feeling of unease hardened, with the help of a morning caffeine hit, into articulate thoughts and themes, a mood change overcame me. I’m not content, this day, to ignore this outrage.

The horror of the government response to a respiratory virus – crashing the economy, suspending schooling, imposing house arrest on the entire population, denying medical care, mandating ‘treatment’ with an experimental therapy, deliberately fear-mongering and scapegoating those who declined the ‘safe and effectives,’ and on and on – ought, in a sane world where the concepts of shame and accountability still meant anything, to have been followed by a period of intense self-examination and public atonement. Yet the official enquiries are asking none of the right questions, as Paul Collits explains.

If anything in the way of new laws or regulations were to be introduced, they ought to have been focused on making sure the kinds of overreach we suffered from never happened again – sweeping a new broom through institutions like the Human Rights Commission who said nothing at all as the poorest in our society were locked in their Housing Commission flats without notice. Or dismantling forever the so-called National Cabinet – conveniently opaque and invented out of thin air to provide a fig leaf of innocence as the Prime Minister and Premiers played out Pilate’s washing of the hands in reverse – this time the usurpers calling for the execution of the people.

But that’s not what we have. Instead of such resetting of the cornerstones of our democracy – the will of the people being restored to the pinnacle and the government installed by our consent – we have ever more draconian rules to suppress those who object. Censorship, power grabs, and digital tracking. Great. When we see no repentance but rather a continuation and escalation of the catastrophic policies that got us into this mess, it’s hard to continue to believe it’s just all one big mistake.

I did have a Plan B. And C. (Plan A, essentially write to my MP and to the editors of the daily papers, went out the window long ago, along with the idea of paying to read propaganda disguised as news.) Plan B was to accept and prepare for future draconian measures, and be ready to be once again excluded from society. Grow some of, at least, my own food. Barter, and exploit local like-minded networks. Turn off the TV, and the phone if necessary. Use cash. Live my life. Read, play music, cook, ride. Not comply.

Plan C was to run. Maybe to an off-grid farmlet that I am yet to buy. Maybe just to another address. Or to the bush. Maybe just run, no plan.

But this day, I feel like not running. I feel like staying put. I feel like repelling the advancing hordes. I feel like defending the things I hold dear, not running away and leaving them behind. Defending my right to speak up. Defending my right to ignore ‘expert’ advice. Defending my right to move around, to spend as I see fit, to eat what I choose. To walk about in the land of the living, breathing fresh air unfiltered by a porous rag strapped to my face. To hold unfashionable views about all sorts of things, including things that are self-evidently true. To vote in secret, without feeling the need to tell the world if I voted red or blue, yes or no.

To be unafraid. To let others worry about the latest variant. To be confident and joyful, to laugh. To be part of the most subversive movement on earth, or in heaven for that matter. To join with others of like mind, like Australians for Science and Freedom.

I won’t be easily shifted. I’m here. I think. I dismiss propaganda for what it is. I vote, for what it’s worth. I exercise my rights.

Reposted from Substack



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  • Richard Kelly is a retired business analyst, married with three adult children, one dog, devastated by the way his home city of Melbourne was laid waste. Convinced justice will be served, one day.

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