Seriously, it’s annoying as hell. First, I digress: when the US government decided to wage war on a tactic in 2001 I was skeptical, especially since the original uses of the term referred to terrorism as, basically, “rule by terror”. The establishment inversion of the term to remove governments from the definition and turn terrorists into non-state actors rankles but has been predictable given the nature of people in positions of coercive power; it’s still irritating. So when the US government declared a War on Terror, I did my obligatory spit-take, tried to explain to my friends, associates, and acquaintances how ludicrous it was, and was called crackpot, unpatriotic, paranoid, delusional, etc. per the usual. Then I tried to point out that terrorizing people halfway around the world was going to do nothing to make us safer, and that no justice would ever be done (precisely the opposite), and cue, once again, the same smears I always hear.
My plea was that investigation would show, if done well, who was involved in the various plots, then we could either persuade those harboring the accused to turn them over to our courts or go get them ourselves in small tactical teams (Side note: I don’t actually support the US court system I’m just trying to sell to normies at this point). No invasion would be necessary. Of course, as an anarchist there are a lot of practical problems with bounty hunting the baddies, but they don’t cost a trillion dollars or 20 years, and any violations of property rights would have been, by virtue of the much smaller scale of action, on a much smaller scale of harm. I should point out here that I fully embrace the idea that I can violate my own principles if I feel I need to. I also fully embrace the idea I be held to account for any harm I do while doing so. I don’t find this to be a contradiction; if you do, let’s talk about it and see if I can’t convince you. I suggest that someone harboring an accused terrorist would be justified in demanding to see the evidence against a person they’re sheltering, but once it’s been provided, stand aside or assist them in securing defensive counsel. And that’s also why I’d wait for solid proof; if I’m gonna violate my principles I’m gonna be DAMNED sure I’m right. Anyway, moving on!
Individuals act. Groups of any size do not act, only the individuals within them. Similarly, you cannot accuse any third party of being at fault when another party is actually performing the action in question. We all hear about what “the virus” or “the pandemic” did to our society, businesses, schools, supply chain, mental health, and economy but we seldom, if ever, have it pointed out in the mainstream that individual bureaucrats and politicians did all that shit! Stop scapegoating! If you look at the numbers from states that took a variety of measures and used a range of coercion to pursue them, you will see that the virus did pretty much what it was gonna do, regardless. Places that had hard lockdowns, mask mandates, and all the draconian controls your little black heart desires had no better, and in several places worse, outcomes to places that had none of that. Blaming human action on a virus is insulting; it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that the people most at risk are old people and those with unhealthy lifestyles, either because they’re just fuckin lazy, they’re ignorant of proper nutrition, or because they’re too damaged for whatever reason to take good care of themselves anymore. There are exceptions, of course, but I’m waiting until next time to talk about them, because they deserve their own post. If we eliminate comorbidities from the official count (which I in no way consider to be accurate, but stick with me) we had about 60,000 deaths from only covid, maximum. And those people were almost all over 80. All the rest died by their habits; they were fundamentally unhealthy. And this is no less a tragedy, but it’s no reason to take actions that make it harder to be healthy, which is what we’ve experienced the last 18 months. Not to be callous but I see no need to shut down the world and fuck things up immeasurably for years, maybe decades or even for the rest of human history, over things that are preventable.
The virus does what it has been programmed to do. Take that how you will; if it’s natural or man-made the description fits, it’s only a difference of whether humans or natural circumstances directed the virus to behave as it does, which is spread. (Side Note: it makes no sense to me that unjabbed, uninfected people are accused of forcing mutations, since there is no immunity to force a virus to mutate to invade their cells in the first place. Makes sense to me that people with antibodies or memory cells would bar the way for the virus, thus it would be forced to disguise or change itself in order to fool the bouncer and get past the door, so to speak. But I’m no expert; can an expert please explain how I’m wrong?) Also, it means that our mitigation efforts can only be effective if they prevent transmission, period. Anything less will allow spread and mutation, and you just can’t keep up with that as there are too many people scattered all over the planet. And all of THAT presupposes that we know the first thing about viruses or they way they interact with human bodies, of which I’ve never been convinced. As I’m fond of saying; folks are acting like we’re in Star Trek levels of medical science while I contend we’re barely past blaming “Bad Humors” for disease. And also for the record, I say that clean water, nutritious food, and good hygiene trump the efficacy of any vaccine, any day. Fight me. Okay, not really, there are exceptions. But for the most part, I don’t think we’ve ever needed vaccines to eliminate disease, or we wouldn’t have eliminated diseases for which there has never been a vaccine. When was the last time you heard of someone being sick with scarlet fever?
Viruses do what they do, they don’t discuss strategy in hazy back rooms or pass mandates or set guidelines; that’s humans. And humans are who you should be mad at for doing all this dumb shit over and over and over again and claiming to expect a different result. I say “claiming” because I’m not at all certain that this isn’t just a continuing experiment, or series of them. Having seen firsthand the past 30+ years’ worth of lies, ridiculous bullshit that passes for explanation and analysis, posturing and making grand rhetorical stands for the cameras, results that have nothing to do with intentions, and all the other unintended consequences of massive coercive systems I can only conclude that we’re all (and have been) Guinea Pigs at the mercy of whichever group of maniacal assholes happen to be in charge of wherever you live at a given time. They have no damned clue what they’re doing, but they seldom have to pay the piper for the tunes they’re calling, we foot the bill in every way. But they have credentials and the ear of the people making the rules so we all have to go along, don’t we?
Some people have decided to rush the pace of scientific discovery and push things into the world before they’re ready and provide for no control group. They are attempting to force it on all of us with no real idea how it’ll turn out, and we all will, once again, have to deal with the consequences. I’d say that makes them selfish, not the ones refusing to go along. I’d say that makes them short-sighted, not us. The panicked rush some people get to “do something” whenever they’re made to feel fear may very well be our downfall.
