The consolidation of a non-democratic form of governance that relies on external sources of authority should be a matter of concern to all. A state that functions via emergency rule based on authority that does not derive from citizens is a dangerous one. It is a hollow state that can only function with external justifications and is no longer a democratic state.
Consider the incredible timeline here. Trump readily agreed to a two-week lockdown, even though he had no such direct power to order such a thing. He then agreed to a 30-day extension though all reports are that he was upset that he had done so. And even after 36 days, he was publicly critical of Republican governors who proposed a reopening.
If unelected bureaucrats can make rules/regulations that overstep their authorities, that conflict with the Constitution, that usurp the power of our elected legislators, then we become a totalitarian state. In that scenario, one person in the Executive Branch will then have a supreme power to tell agencies what to do, and those unelected agency actors will carry out the orders with obedience. “I am just following orders” is a very dangerous yet very real mantra in a “Regulation Nation.”
Assembly Bill 2098 would empower the Medical Board of California to go after the licenses of physicians who disseminate “misinformation” or “disinformation” regarding Covid-19. The bill in its latest iteration defines misinformation as “false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.” The inscrutability of this definition lies at the core of the bill’s opponents concerns.
The Federal Reserve flagrantly violated its mandate to maintain price stability when it kept interest rates near zero for a full year after inflation soared above its target. It’s disingenuous for the Fed governors to now act like inflation hawks, pushing the entire economy into recession, after they let inflation run unchecked well above their target for a full year.
If our civilization collapses, it won’t be because of an outside attack, like Bedouin charging in from the desert. It will be because of those among us who, like parasites, destroy us from within. Our civilization may collapse and it could be due to any number of factors—war, the economy, natural disasters—but the silent killer, the one that may get us in the end, is our own moral catastrophe.
The harms that lockdowns would cause were all well-known and reported at the time they were first adopted as policy in early 2020. These included accurate estimates of mass deaths due to delayed medical operations, a mental health crisis, drug overdoses, an economic recession, global poverty, hunger, and starvation.
When payment services or banks begin to act in this way, it should dawn upon us what a serious threat to free and open exchange of opinions we are facing. Not only can you be fired from your job, your very possibility to make a living will be taken away also.
Let’s start with two simple questions. If regulators had the information available to them of the leakage between Covid-19 vaccine efficacy rates in controlled trials and their effectiveness in the real world, would they still grant emergency use authorization? Would their legal framework permit them to do so?
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