There is nothing more central to the idea and practice of freedom than bodily autonomy. It is the basal freedom from which all others are derived. Without it—as the history of slavery starkly reminds us—all other liberties are comparatively ornamental.
BJ Dichter is one of the organizers of the Canadian Truckers for Freedom Convoy and its media spokesman. We had an opportunity to speak with him earlier this week about the situation in Ottawa, the convoy’s strategy and about some of the political elements that are at play as this extremely fluid situation makes headlines and continues to inspire people all over the world.
“The Honking Will Continue”: A Conversation With BJ Dichter Read More
The destruction wrought by the lockdowns has many fathers—computer-modelers who terrified federal policymakers with guesses dressed up as certainties; health officials who were given the levers of government without any sense of or care for unintended consequences; governors who ruled by executive fiat.
Students have begun to protest against mask mandates, and one group in an Illinois high school has received some national attention for their position. The group is Voices Unmasked and they are associated with a suburban high school outside of Chicago that has long imposed a severe masking policy.
The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) published by the Centers for Disease Control has released a fascinating study on comparing hospitalization with Covid-19 immunity status, thus addressing a topic of pressing concern for public health. The study, published in the January 28, 2022 weekly, carries the self-explanatory title “COVID-19 Cases and Hospitalizations by COVID-19 Vaccination Status and Previous COVID-19 Diagnosis — California and New York, May–November 2021.”
If governments and public-health officials are looking for people to blame for vaccine hesitancy, they need only look in the mirror.
So you’ll forgive the people who don’t want to play a bit part in the weird, hyperventilating Covid reality show the media’s producing 24-7. You’ll understand when the art appearing on their streets takes an edge, bucktooths a lower lip, and throws you the bird.
Freedom is not an option, despite what they say. It is not something granted to us by the powerful at their discretion. It is a universal right, one protected only by a culture that loves it, institutions that guard it, and people who fight for it. We can get there. We are in a position to help prove this, to rebuild, and work for a world in which nothing like this ever happens again.
The public demanded control over something that couldn’t be controlled. Local, state, and national leaders, whether they understood that they couldn’t actually offer increased safety or not, began to offer the next best thing—The Appearance of Safety.
The White House is asking Spotify to censure Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan should ask the CDC to censure MMWR. The truth is the CDC has put out so many papers that borderline propaganda, that they create the space for people to seek alternative information. They have lost trust.
If progressives were still progressives they would be fighting bio-fascism with every cell in their body. Some are, but most are not.
Unfortunately, sitting atop the world’s largest stash of infectious disease research money, with an annual NIAID budget of over $6 billion, Dr. Fauci was able to command the nation’s pandemic strategy with little opposition from other infectious disease scientists.
