Categories
Accountability government transparency ideological culture

Pandemic Politics … or Poltroonery?

Fear was a major theme — and ploy — during the pandemic. But it’s looking now like the people we have been told to rely upon for our safety are themselves moved by fear. They’re cowards, poltroons.

The Centers for Disease Control wrote an alert in the thick of 2021’s “vaccine” rollout, warning of the dangers of the Moderna and Pfizer jabs.

It was never sent out.

“In the May 25, 2021, email, exclusively obtained by The Epoch Times, a CDC official revealed why some officials were against sending the alert,” explains Zachary Stieber. You see, while an alert to health care professionals using the official Health Area Network system made complete sense, one CDC official gave a clue to her colleagues’ hesitance: “people don’t want to appear alarmist,” you see.

What did we who took the jab risk? Heart inflammation, or myocarditis. The CDC knew this early on.

But did not warn us.

Now, from listening to Dr. John Campbell on YouTube and Rumble, we have learnedlot more (if not in time in 2021) about the myocarditis threat. The takers of the modRNA treatment who are most at risk are those who engage in strenuous exercise soon after inoculation (which explains why the bulk of the afflicted have been boys and young men in the prime of life). Or so I last heard. I am certainly no doctor; I merely rely upon doctors to advise me.

And those doctors, in turn, rely upon official sources of information like the CDC. 

Who did not advise them properly.

Who worry too much about “appearing alarmist” and not enough about relaying the best information.

Poltroons!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


PDF for printing

Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
Accountability media and media people national politics & policies

Lessons Not Yet Learned?

When will we learn to distrust big government?

While readers of this Common Sense have been tracking the Wuhan Lab Leak story for two years now, most people are still behind the curve. Fortunately, another government agency has weighed in on the Lab Leak side, as reported by Michael R. Gordon and Warren P. Strobel in the Wall Street Journal: “Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-​19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says.

No wonder there’s disagreement and confusion, though: “The Energy Department made its judgment with ‘low confidence,’ according to people who have read the classified report,” Gordon and Strobel explain. 

There remains much we do not know, of course. But we should understand that is largely because China’s totalitarian regime has purposely hidden information from the world. With the full assistance of Dr. Anthony Fauci and Big Government Science in the U.S.… and evasive coverage by our media.

Then consult Brett Stephens’ “The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?” in The New York Times last week.

Now, many of us embraced masks early on, when little was known, bascally advising mask wearing as a signal of hope. We can do something. But soon the masks themselves masked something other than hope: the raw powerlust of the elites in their lockdown tyranny over the masses.

But for actual reduction in the contagion of a virus, Stephens reports, masks are useless. Citing an Oxford epidemiologist with the great name of “Tom Jefferson,” not even N‑95 masks do the trick: “Makes no difference — none of it,” said Jefferson.

What about those studies we were informed proved the case? They were “nonrandomized,” “flawed observational studies.”

Yet lots of politicians and bureaucrats — including “the mindless” Centers for Disease Control — keep pushing masks.

It’s not that we cannot learn. It’s that they don’t want us to.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


PDF for printing

Illustration created with PicFinder​.ai

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
general freedom local leaders

Tyranny Averted?

Parents United Rhode Island has apparently fended off a vaccination mandate in their state.

Mike Stenhouse explains how this coalition leapt into action against a legislative effort to impose universal vaccination. (We use the term “vaccinated” loosely, since any ameliorative effects of the vaccines reportedly fade pretty quickly and don’t actually prevent COVID-19.)

The mandate’s penalties for noncompliance would have included monthly $50 fines, doubling of recalcitrants’ state income taxes, and fines upon employers of $5,000 per unvaccinated employee.

State Senator Samuel Bell submitted the legislation, S2552, on March 1 of this year. Because the country was by then returning to something like pre-​pandemic “normal life,” the bill seemed dead on arrival.

But then the Boston Globe shifted into overdrive to revive the legislation, which also received new support from local media.

That’s when ParentsUnitedRI​.com and others sounded the alarm. In just a few weeks, the bill became radioactive, hurrying former sponsors to renounce their support.

The state legislature’s current session ends June 30. Stenhouse suggests that although the senate president could still fast-​track the Draconian proposal at any time, “there is likely no political appetite for such a heavy-​handed measure, especially in an election year.”

If Bell’s bill does die in the current session, it’s even less likely to be revived in the next. Whatever political appetite there may be right now to stomp people who make the “wrong” decision about getting vaccinated, popular opposition has done its work, making medical tyranny much less likely.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
First Amendment rights general freedom social media

#GoPoundSand

The exact words of GiveSendGo, on Twitter:

“Know this! Canada has absolutely ZERO jurisdiction over how we manage our funds here at GiveSendGo. All funds for EVERY campaign on GiveSendGo flow directly to the recipients of those campaigns, not least of which is The Freedom Convoy campaign.”

Just the attitude one would hope for.

This wonderful statement is in response to assertions by the government of Ontario that they’re preventing the Freedom Convoy from getting the funds via GiveSendGo that truckers need to eat, gas up after police steal their gas, etc. All the standard expenses involved in being a national (and now international) trucker convey fighting tyranny.

Compare the inspiring policies of the folks at GiveSendGo with the dreary interventionism of the pinch-​mouthed overlords at GoFundMe.

In addition to shutting down the Freedom Convoy campaign, GoFundMe briefly but seriously planned to steal some of the donations that had already been made.

GoFundMe has also shut down other fundraising campaigns to oppose mask and vaccine mandates, campaigns to help Kyle Rittenhouse and to help conservative students harassed at Arizona State University, a campaign to investigate voter fraud, etc.

We have to think long and hard. If we need to raise money for a purpose the tyrannical left would disapprove, are we better off going with new-​kid-​on-​the-​block GiveSendGo or better-​established GoFundMe?

I hope that you ponder this question for the same full millisecond that I did.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
Thought

Robert P. Murphy

It is wasteful for the government to commandeer resources from the private sector during good times, and it’s even more harmful when the government kicks the economy during a recession.

Robert P. Murphy, Ph.D., Contra Krugman: Smashing the Errors of America’s Most Famous Keynesian (2018), p. 18.

Categories
crime and punishment general freedom international affairs moral hazard

Thank Omicron? Or Hypocrisy?

It was not immediately clear what had changed regarding “the science,” when, midweek, Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson lifted the Queen’s government’s mask mandates and other coronavirus restrictions.

The case for and against mask efficacy has been about the same for a very long time. There’s no obvious statistical evidence for mask mandates working. And pre-​2020 studies showed ambiguous results for preventing virus transmission by wearing masks — and certainly not for the cloth masks most people wear.

So what changed?

Well, Johnson cited the omicron variant. “Our scientists believe that the omicron wave has now peaked nationally,” he said, adding that hospital admissions had stabilized and that London admissions were falling. 

So he lifted mask requirements in schools, too.

This takes some pressure off him. The vast majority of Brits are tired of masks, especially on students.

Predictably, however, some school masters appear to be clinging to the cloth. 

Regardless, why the change?

Spokespersons for the beleaguered opposition party, Labour, argue it’s mostly political, since Boris was caught at two bigwig parties where no one was wearing masks. “Can the PM share the evidence,” asked one, “behind his decision and that he’s not just protecting his job?” 

And Johnson says that “the scientific evidence is there for everybody to consult” — but, face it, everything these politicians say is half-​assessed and untrustworthy.

Still, at least the people of Britain will receive a little let-​up from the oppressive “scientific” tyranny of their government.

Not all states to the west of the Atlantic can say the same.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts