Is liberalism a lost cause? Many say so. Many today dream that it would stay gone, forever doomed to be regarded as a failed experiment in a world longing for authoritarian control whether by the right, the left, the technocratic elite, or something else. Demoralized and depressed by so much “shock and awe,” and living in times of ubiquitous surveillance and unrelenting diktat, many others are inclined to give up the dream of freedom completely.
We can see the long arm of history reaching from the times of the Black Death to modern epidemics, where coercion and state control are accepted by a terrified public and conveniently deemed by a power-hungry elite to be the only acceptable way to combat natural disasters, even at the risk of tremendous and unnecessary collateral damage.
Because of the gruesome spectacle in Shanghai, many who once supported lockdowns have gone silent. Indeed, these scenes are the logical conclusion of the Zero Covid cause, and serve as a grim reminder of the dystopia that could have been our own had they gotten their way.
We may be faced with catastrophic consequences of what we did to our children over the last two years of unsound Covid restrictive policies, and allowed government technocrats to force these upon them. These are matters too important to nonchalantly disregard.
It’s possible that at some point down the line, Chinese authorities became convinced that their Wuhan lockdown actually worked, and that an aggressive level of nationalistic superiority was the reason that China justifies its position as the only country in the world to “eliminate” the virus through lockdowns.
In a word, the combination of government induced “supply-side” contraction and ultra-stimulated merchandise “demand” has no parallel for folly in the annals of Washington economic policy. It was a destructive eruption in a class all by itself, and the foundation for the runaway inflation now plaguing the American public.
Fighting mandates on college campuses is isolating and ostracizing. When faced with giving up your dreams, the coercion is unbearable. Many students have caved under the pressure.
Elon Musk’s exciting and dramatic move represents a bold attempt to overthrow the regime of control, propaganda, and enforced opinion as manufactured by the administrative state. It could be a sign of things to come. The upheaval of our times will eventually touch every institution based on the widespread perception that something has gone very wrong and cries out for a fix.
The struggle against this darkness will surely take many years. Who and what will keep that struggle alive? What hurt will fuel the fight, keeping the fires of resentment burning, and what hurt – real as it may have been – will fade over time and hence be only a weak ally of the soldiers of the resistance?
Looked at through the prism of Germany, war is the destruction of that which economic growth builds. Worse, war is the destruction of the very human capital without which there is no growth. Freedom is the path to economic revival.
For two years, the elite journalists, scientists, politicians, and health officials who speak for our most prestigious institutions have been conspicuously and vehemently deferential to the integrity of China’s Covid data.
It’s absolutely never that you will meet another human with whom you have everything in common, and agree on every topic. The important part is finding common ground. And it turns out that right now, the most important common ground I can think of is medical freedom, and bodily autonomy, which has landed me in the midst of a fascinating movement that is more diverse than any community of which I have ever been a part.
