History remembers pandemics as periods of great human suffering. The Black Death. The Spanish flu. Smallpox. The Covid era will be remembered not merely for the severity of the disease, but the rise of the global Covid state.
Big Government wants supreme power over the lives of the people. Big Pharma seeks a captive market. Big Media and Big Tech aim to shape how you think and feel about everything. The global elite work to maximize their wealth, power and influence; while simultaneously reducing your ability to grow your own. With the coming of Covid, all their goals align, giving rise to the Covid state.
We are seeing this in real time.
Manufacturing Consent
Democracy rests on the consent of the governed. It is a time-honored principle that forms the heart of the mythos of democracy. Where totalitarian governments can simply impose their will on the people, governments professing to follow the tenets of democracy must pay lip service to this principle. Too harsh measures imposed in too short a time undermines the principle of consent, and thus the political legitimacy of the state. The Covid state requires consent to operate. Thus it seeks to manufacture it.
The news is not in the business of news. It is in the business of narrative. No one person can keep track of everything going on in the world at once. Therefore, they trust the news media to curate current events for them, so they can make sense of the world. Big Media uses this position of trust to shape how you think and feel about issues. They do this by selectively covering facts and omitting others, giving favourable coverage to one group while casting others in a negative light. This is how they create the narrative.
The narrative of the Covid state rests on the following memes:
- Covid is extremely contagious and dangerous
- Vaccines, vaccine discrimination, lockdowns, masks and mandates are critical to fighting the disease
- Everyone must comply for these measures to work
Classic sales techniques follow a similar pattern. First present a problem in such a way that it induces a powerful emotional reaction, such as fear and anxiety. Then offer the solution, which will take away these negative emotions and induce an upswing of positive emotions. After that, introduce the conditions necessary for the solutions to work. Finally, address objections.
Thus we see the following memes:
- Vaccines are safe and effective
- Adverse reactions are rare
- Boosters are necessary to maintain protection
- Two-dose vaccine regimen is less effective against the new variant—therefore you need boosters
- Vaccines protect everyone—but only if everyone is vaccinated
- Masks, lockdowns and mandates work
- Pandemic of the unvaccinated
- Hospitals are overwhelmed
- Children are at risk of catching and spreading the disease
The primary goal is not to report the truth. The goal is to drive the narrative and manufacture consent. With the consent of the people—or at least their non-objection—the Covid state is free to do anything.
Masks. Lockdowns. Mass vaccination. Vaccine passports. Vaccine discrimination. Vaccine mandates.
Step by step, governments the world over have imposed increasingly onerous restrictions on the people. This is the principle of incrementalism: taking the target right up to the edge of what he accepts, let him get used to the new reality, then take him a step beyond. Through small, steady steps, the world has shifted dramatically towards medical tyranny in the space of just two years.
It’s not enough to manufacture consent. A counter-narrative can undo the main narrative and eliminate consent. The narrative must be maintained and consent must be enforced.
Enforcing Consent
Big Pharma offers the solutions. Big Media amplifies the message. Big Government wields the big stick. Together, they work to defend the narrative at all costs.
Anyone who undermines the narrative is labeled an anti-vaxxer, accused of spreading fake news and online falsehoods, ostracised, and censored.
Anyone who violates a mandate is punished, and the punishment publicized.
Any healthcare professional, scientist or expert who speaks against the narrative will lose their livelihoods.
Any law enforcement officer or government official who refuses to support the narrative will be pressured into compliance or resignation.
Anyone who is unvaccinated and dies from Covid is ridiculed in the media.
Anyone who refuses the vaccine faces constant pressure, ostracism and restrictions.
The principle is to kill one to warn a hundred. By making an example of one person, the Covid state seeks to create a network effect that influences the minds of everyone around him.
Humans are social animals. They take their cues from everyone in their social and parasocial circles. Their friends, family and relatives; their favourite celebrities and influencers; their political and religious leaders. This is especially pronounced in communal societies and people with authoritarian value systems. They want to be accepted by their social circles. They don’t want to be rejected by them. By enforcing consent, the Covid state turns the human pysche against the individual, and the majority against the minority.
First it teaches you to be afraid of the virus. Then it teaches you to be afraid of people who spread the virus. Next comes fear of ever-increasing and arbitrary restrictions. After that it teaches you to be afraid of punishment and pressure.
At the same time, it offers a way out. The vaccinated enjoy a special privilege: the privilege of living a nearly-normal life. But only if everyone else complies. Proof of vaccination is both proof of compliance and a marker of status. To amplify the message, the narrative highlights the celebrities who take the vaccine, and provides the newly vaccinated every opportunity to show how virtuous they are. Social media badges, puff pieces, positive media coverage for everyone with the courage to make the choice the Covid state demands them to make.
The Covid state places immense pressure on the target populace, then they present an easy way out. All you need do is comply, and you too can become part of the majority, to enjoy special privileges over the unvaccinated minority, and demonstrate how caring and heroic you are in going along with the crowd.
The Covid state, despite its immense power, does not have infinite resources. Therefore, it turns the people against each other, empowering them to carry out the never-ending task of discrimination.
Employers are given the power to fire the unvaccinated and hire only the vaccinated. Places of worship are allowed to make accepting the vaccination as an integral part of practicing the faith. Enforcement officers are given grand titles and empowered to uphold vaccine discrimination. Ordinary people are free to pressure everyone around them to take the vaccine. The Covid state does not punish those who serve the narrative, only those who threaten it.
A minority of these people are petty tyrants who enjoy lording it over people. But most of them are afraid. Afraid of the virus, afraid of more restrictions, afraid of having to make adjustments to their lifestyles and income. They believe that taking the vaccine and keeping your mouth shut is the only way to return to normalcy. They may have good intentions, but good intentions will not save them. They are doomed to repeat one of the most painful lessons from history:
You cannot comply your way to freedom.
Endemic Restrictions
The Covid state assures us that we are transitioning to ‘endemic Covid’, a time when the virus will always be with us, yet be less dangerous over time.
It does not assure us of an end to restrictions.
The Omicron variant seems to be much less dangerous than previous strains, and the two-dose vaccine regimen is less effective against Omicron then Delta. Nonetheless, in the name of public health, the Covid state pushes for more boosters and more vaccine discrimination. Even if you’ve fully recovered from Covid, the Covid state demands that you get the shot. Likewise, even if you’re considered fully vaccinated now, the Covid state requires you to take the booster in the future to maintain your vaccination status.
Germany reports a fatality rate of zero among healthy children between the ages of 5 to 18 in the first 15 months of the pandemic. Singapore’s data also suggests that children are resilient against Covid. Regardless, the Covid state is now pushing for children to get vaccinated, claiming that the vaccines are safe and reduce the risk of transmission and severe illness.
The Covid state insists that vaccines are safe and effective, and labels any attempt to examine the issue as ‘online falsehoods’ or paints it as unreliable data, no matter what new developments may emerge.
The narrative states that Pfizer’s vaccine is not linked to any deaths. The Food and Drug Administration says it will take 55 years to release all the data related to the vaccine approval process. The first batch of published data is already released. The Covid state has no issue with the timeline, and will not draw attention to Page 7 of the initial batch of documents.
Put all this together, and you see where the narrative leads. There will always be a new variant. There will always be a need for vaccines and boosters. There will always be a need for restrictions. There will always be a need to discriminate against the unvaccinated. Anything that undermines the narrative will be erased from the public eye, anyone who speaks against the narrative will be blacklisted.
The narrative empowers the Covid state. But it is also a trap. It locks the Covid state into a spiral of increasingly harsher and more arbitrary measures. The Covid state can not do anything else; to do otherwise would be to undercut its very reason for existence. At the spiral’s end, the narrative taken to the logical extreme, endemic Covid equals endemic restrictions.
The pandemic will end. Covid seems set on evolving into a much less harmful form. We can hope that this means an end to restrictions. But do not count on it. Now that the framework for repression exists, the Covid state can apply it to anyone.
Today it is Covid. Tomorrow, it will be anyone who runs afoul of the Establishment. People who worship the wrong religion, with too large a carbon footprint, with an unfavorable social credit score. When the people are accustomed to lockdowns, discrimination and restrictions for ‘the greater good’, they will continue to go along with them. At that point, the reason the system of repression exists will be forgotten. Instead, the new narrative will simply be that this is how things have always been.
Where does that leave us?
No and Never Again
It is not enough to say no. We must say no and never again.
No more fear-based narratives, and never again.
No more vaccine discrimination, and never again.
No more globalised medical tyranny, and never again.
Do not participate in the machinery of the Covid state. Do not accept in silence the continued discrimination of your fellow citizens. Do not participate in a society that rejects you.
Compliance is easy. Resistance is effortful—but not necessarily hard.
The narrative is a trap. The Covid state has to embark on increasingly absurd courses of action, which will turn the people against it. Calvin Cheng, one of Singapore’s loudest vaccine advocates, is now actually calling for the people to speak up against ridiculous rules and regulations. The Covid state cannot maintain itself indefinitely. When the pandemic is over, its reason for existence will be extinguished. And the people will remember what it has done to them.
Choose freedom over fear. Freedom in all things. Freedom of income, freedom of choice, freedom to raise your children in the way you deem best, freedom to be the best you can be.
Walk away from a society that rejects you. Eliminate every avenue the Covid state can use against you: your career, your social circles, your preferred stores.
Never again allow anyone to override your free will.
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