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'Forget About COVID', They Say...; Rationality is back! ... for political reasons...
Brownstone Institute ^ | 03/09/2022 | Jeffrey Tucker

Posted on 03/09/2022 8:42:27 PM PST by SeekAndFind

Earlier this year, a phrase was trending because Bari Weiss used it on a talk show: “I’m done with Covid.” Many people cheered simply because the subject has been the source of vast oppression for billions of people for two years.

There are two ways to be over Covid.

One way is to do what the memo from the consultants of the Democratic National Committee suggested: declare the war won and move on. For political reasons.

Deaths attributed to Covid nationally are higher now than they were in the summer of 2020 when the whole country was locked down. They are also higher now than during the election of November the same year.

But today we are just supposed to treat it for what it is: a seasonal virus with a disparate impact on the aged and frail.

Rationality is back! In that sense, it’s good to forget about Covid if it means living life normally and behaving with clarity about what does and does not work to mitigate a virus. The Democrats decided that the hyper-restrictionist ways were risking political fortunes. Hence, the line and the talking points needed to change.

Another way to get over Covid is to forget completely about the last two years, especially the astonishing failures of compulsory pandemic controls.

Forget about the school closures that cost a generation two years of learning.

Forget that the hospitals were largely closed to people without a Covid-related malady.

Forget about the preventable nursing-home deaths.

Forget that dentistry was practically abolished for a few months, or that one could not even get a haircut.

Forget the stay-at-home orders, the church and business closures, the playground and gym closures, the bankruptcies, the travel restrictions, the firings, the crazed advice for everyone to mask up and physically separate, the record drug-related deaths, the mass depression, the segregation, the brutalization of small business, the labor-force dropouts, the forced stoppages of art and culture, and the capacity limits on venues that forced weddings and funerals to be on Zoom.

Forget about a closer look at the bogus mathematical models, vaccine trials, the circumstances behind the Emergency Use Authorizations, the adverse effects, the inaccuracies of the PCR test, and misclassification of deaths, the billions and trillions of misdirected funds, the division of all workers between essential and nonessential, and the millions who were forced to get jabs they did not want.

Forget about the possibility of a lab leak, the role of China, the deadly use of ventilators, the neglect of therapeutics, the near-banning of all talk of natural immunity, the overselling of the vaccine, the lost religious holidays, the lonely deaths due to the blocking of loved ones from hospitals, the censorship of science, the manipulated and hidden CDC data, the payments to the major media, the symbiotic relationship between government and Big Tech, the demonization of dissent, and the abuse of emergency powers.

Forget how health bureaucracies headed by political appointees took over the task of regulating nearly the whole of life, while messaging the country that freedom just doesn’t matter much anymore!

Who precisely benefits from this method of being “over Covid?”

The unrepentant hegemon that gave us this disaster to begin with. They want to be in the clear. They don’t just desire to be exonerated; they don’t want to be judged at all. They want to be unaccountable. The best path toward that end is to foster public amnesia.

I don’t just mean the Democrats. This calamity all began under a Republican president who still retains folk-hero status. Plus all Republican governors except one (Kristi Noem of South Dakota) bought into the initial lockdowns. They don’t want to talk about it either.

There is a vast machine extant that desperately wants everyone to forget. Not even forgive, just forget. Don’t think about the old thing. Think about the new thing instead. Don’t learn lessons. Don’t change the system. Don’t uproot the bureaucracies or examine why the court system failed us so miserably until it was too late. Don’t seek more information. Don’t seek reforms. Don’t take away powers from the CDC and NIH, much less Homeland Security.

Meanwhile, we live amidst a crisis without precedent. It affects health, economics, law, culture, education, and science. Nothing has been left untouched. The end of travel augmented every preexisting international tension. The wild government spending and the monetary accommodation of the ballooning debt, in addition to supply chain breakages, are all directly responsible for record levels of inflation. It’s much easier to blame Putin than it is to look at the failed policies of the US and many other governments in the world.

There are so many remaining questions. My own estimate is that we know about 5% of what we need to know to make sense of this whole disaster. What precisely were Fauci, Collins, Farrar, Birx, and the whole gang doing in February 2020 when they weren’t looking for early treatments?

Why did so many prominent epidemiologists completely reverse their stated views on lockdowns? They flipped from being largely skeptical of coercive measures on March 2, 2020, to fully embracing the most egregious measures only a few weeks later. Moreover, there was clearly a conspiracy emanating from the top to smear dissenting scientists who later said that the lockdowns were causing vastly more harm than good. The people behind the Great Barrington Declaration were targeted by government and media for professional ruin.

When did the vaccine companies get rolled into the mix and under what terms? We need to know the when and why of the questioning and denial of natural immunity. Who was involved in this egregious and wholly inaccurate attempt to stigmatize those who rejected the vaccine? Where were the trials for generic therapeutics that the NIH is supposed to fund?

Why in general did an entire establishment choose panic, lockdown, and mandate over calm and the traditional practice of public health?

I have my own questions.

What were the conditions and the messages that led the New York Times to use its podcasts and printed pages (February 27 and 28, 2020) to spread absolute panic?

This institution had never done this before in any previous pandemic. Why did it choose this path even weeks before Fauci and Birx started lobbying Trump to pull the trigger?

To put a fine point on it: how much money was involved?

What we need is a full timeline with every detail for two years. We need reparations for the victims. We need to take powers away from hundreds and thousands of leading politicians, scientists, public health officials and media executives.

What changed pandemic panic to a new calm is the force of public opinion. God bless the protestors, polls, and truckers. That is a great improvement but there is a long way to go to rekindle the love of liberty that can protect us next time. It’s not about left and right. We need a new understanding of public health, bodily autonomy, and essential liberties.

Some people want global amnesia and otherwise no change in the regime, no follow-up, no investigations, no connecting dots, no justice, no answers to burning questions.

And consider this.

If we are so over Covid, why are people still being fired for not being vaccinated, including people with superior natural immunity? Why have the fired not been rehired? Why the masks on planes, trains, and buses? Why the continued quarantine rules? Why the restrictions on international travel? Why are children still forced to cover their faces? Why must everyone who wants to see a Broadway play be forced to cover up their smiles?

The remnants of restrictions, mandates, and impositions are there to serve as a reminder of the prevailing ruling-class attitude toward their policy choices. There are no regrets. They have done everything right. And they still have their thumb on you.

That is intolerable. By all means, forget about Covid and live life as normally as possible in defiance of those who live to foster fear. But, never forget the disastrous Covid restrictions that created such destruction. We cannot let anyone off the hook, much less pretend that the policy disaster that created billions of personal tragedies never happened.

The world we live in today – with worse health, economic dislocations, demoralized and undereducated children and youth, segregations and censorships, the unquestioned ubiquity of rules manufactured by the undemocratic administrative state, the instability and fear that comes with no longer trusting the system – is a far cry from the one that existed only a few years ago. We need to know why, how, and who. There are millions of questions that cry out for answers. We must have them. And we need to work to recover, rebuild, and insure it will never happen again.


TOPICS: Government; Health/Medicine; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: covid; politics; rationality
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1 posted on 03/09/2022 8:42:27 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Two years to flatten the constitution.


2 posted on 03/09/2022 8:46:41 PM PST by P-Marlowe (I got the <ΙΧΘΥΣ>< variant. Catch it. John 3:16)
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To: SeekAndFind

When the Keystone Pipeline reopens, I will know the Dems are ready to talk about being rational. Not holding my breath on that one.


3 posted on 03/09/2022 9:03:11 PM PST by lee martell
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To: SeekAndFind

PING


4 posted on 03/09/2022 9:28:51 PM PST by 7thson (I've got a seat at the big conference table! I'm gonna paint my logo on it!)
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To: SeekAndFind

I am conflicted.

When my colleagues have masks on I cannot see their lips moving.

This makes it easy to pretend


5 posted on 03/09/2022 9:31:45 PM PST by algore
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To: SeekAndFind; null and void

The pandemic was supposed to happen under Brak, and was supposed to be ebola.
Recall Brak bringing people straight from the hot zone to the U.S. for “treatment”.
Also recall a few media idiots asking “is ebola a pandemic?!” back then as well.
Also, ebola nurse Kaci, the idiot deli trip doctor, and others acting like they were purposely trying to spread something.
Maybe I’m paranoid, but I get the feeling that when ebola didn’t spread like they’d hoped that they started doing dry runs of how it could have if it had.


6 posted on 03/09/2022 9:52:00 PM PST by Darksheare (Those who support liberal "Republicans" summarily support every action by same. )
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To: SeekAndFind

It must be really difficult to switch between normal text, bold, italic and underlined and every possible combination thereof and still be able to make sense.


7 posted on 03/09/2022 10:07:00 PM PST by webheart (I thought I was helping by getting vaccinated but they say I didn’t help at all. )
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To: SeekAndFind

and per usual the republicans in congress are not even bothering to point out the massive hypocrisy and scam by the left over covid- pointing out that they used it to scare the crap out of people just for political purposes- Counting many deaths as ‘covid deaths’ when they obviously were not- Who knows how many deaths they labelled as covid deaths when they absolutely were not? We will never know because they LIED through the whole thing-


8 posted on 03/09/2022 10:14:39 PM PST by Bob434
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To: webheart

If marquee were still an html command, I’m sure we could make it more entertaining for you.


9 posted on 03/09/2022 10:18:12 PM PST by Darksheare (Those who support liberal "Republicans" summarily support every action by same. )
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To: P-Marlowe
Our Bill of Rights diminished if not gone, our constitutional system perverted, inverted and ignored, a presidential election with all inferior offices stolen or at least compromised, our economy wrecked, our currency anemic, our domestic oligarchs enriched and, worse, empowered, our administrative swamp triumphant, our futures darkened….

Thank God we did not run the risk of a constitutional convention of the states - some adverse event might conceivably have arisen.


10 posted on 03/10/2022 12:50:17 AM PST by nathanbedford (Attack, repeat, attack! - Bull Halsey)
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To: SeekAndFind

It’s not over. I still can’t work in my chosen field unless I get jabbed. Still can’t cross the border without the jab. There are lots of places that are still requiring proof of vaccination to eat, go to movies or whatever. States of emergency still exist. WHO is working on a vaccine passport. Until vaccine mandates are all gone and the people who were involved in this travesty are put on trial this isn’t over with.


11 posted on 03/10/2022 12:58:35 AM PST by whershey
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To: SeekAndFind

Covid revealed the totalitarian underpinnings of our system. Just look at Canada where property rights were eliminated,just like that. The powers do not want us to remember it but to be somewhat subconscious of the threat, conditioned.

The police, now federally funded in great part, pretending to be local when they in fact are beholden, is apparently there only to raise a band of terrorist proxies in pogroms.


12 posted on 03/10/2022 1:18:14 AM PST by JudgemAll (Democrats Fed. job-security in hates:hypocrites must be gay like us or be tested/crucified)
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To: whershey

Yep, the proceeding is over, but the fraudulent alimony/childsupport decree is still there.


13 posted on 03/10/2022 1:19:49 AM PST by JudgemAll (Democrats Fed. job-security in hates:hypocrites must be gay like us or be tested/crucified)
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To: SeekAndFind; All
Covid was simply about Control and MONEY. Merck made $54 billion on their clot shot. Covid is gold to the hospitals that receive essentially a bonus check for every Covid bed and more for a Covid death.

Ya gotta admit, it wiped out the flu last year. Right? No cases of the annual flu in 2021. Covid was the biggest scam in world history.

14 posted on 03/10/2022 1:58:43 AM PST by Cobra64 (Common sense isn’t common anymore.)
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To: JudgemAll

We screwed over landlords as well (in terms of property rights); anyone contemplating owning/operating rental properties should remember this!


15 posted on 03/10/2022 2:35:27 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: SeekAndFind

covid is virtually forgotten at FR. had to go back to this thread to post the following from Australia:

Senator Kitching died today, at the same age as cricketing great and fellow Victorian Shane Warne, who suffered a heart attack late last week (4 March) - The Australian newspaper:

10 March: Australian Financial Review: Labor senator Kimberley Kitching dead aged 52
The Labor Party and federal politics in general is in deep shock over the sudden death of Victorian ALP senator Kimberly Kitching on Thursday.

Senator Kitching, 52, died of a suspected heart attack...
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/labor-senator-kimberley-kitching-dead-aged-52-20220310-p5a3ok

16 July 2021: Sky News Australia: Vaccination is ‘our only way out of this nightmare’
Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching says the “only way out” of the pandemic is to be vaccinated and Australians should not be discouraging others from receiving the jab.
“Being vaccinated is the only way out of this nightmare and it is a bit of a nightmare with the rolling lockdowns but obviously we need the supply of the vaccines and they are coming,” she told Sky News...

Ms Kitching also said the Australian Bureau of Statistics released data showing “ten to 19 per cent of Australians on a state by state breakdown” do not agree with getting vaccinated as soon as possible.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done and a lot of work to encourage our fellow Australians to be vaccinated.”
“It is wrong for people to be discouraging people from being vaccinated, we need everyone to be vaccinated, and I think we are all in this together.”
https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/vaccination-is-our-only-way-out-of-this-nightmare/video/7a9aef4ef104afefc74d1c48c2d19c6d

anyone who questioned if the vax had anything to do with Shane Warne’s death was immediately attacked; another cricketing legend, Rod Marsh, aged 74, died of a heart attack the same day as Warne, 4 March, which might have prompted people to at least call for an investigation into the possibility the vaxxes played a part.

Warne’s body has just returned to Australia from Thailand today. an autopsy performed in Thailand states he died from natural causes. have seen online some claim Warne’s family do not intend getting a second autopsy done. don’t know if that is true or not. his family have apparently said he’d had some heart concerns in recent months - which would be post-vaxxes.

Kimberley Kitching was a very lively individual, with nothing to suggest she was ill. her death is quite a shock.


16 posted on 03/10/2022 2:47:30 AM PST by MAGAthon
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To: Darksheare

The only good thing I can say about Obama is that when Fauci and the gang wanted him to shut things down over the H1N1 virus (another Chinese virus), he refused and simply ignored their advice because he thought it would do more harm than good, especially to the economy.

I will never understand why Trump went along with the Covid insanity and then then didn’t fight back harder when he obviously had begun to realize that it was a politically motivated scam and a disaster. Instead he just handed over the government to Fauci.


17 posted on 03/10/2022 3:21:50 AM PST by livius
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To: SeekAndFind

This is an excellent, angry article and he asks good questions.

“We need to know why, how, and who. There are millions of questions that cry out for answers. We must have them. And we need to work to recover, rebuild, and insure it will never happen again. “

But I honestly don’t know who is ever going to see that the above happens. The entire global ruling class was in on this one, from political leaders to the courts to the medical establishment.

And now we have them giggling, nudging each other and starting up the fear and hate machine over the evil Russians and WWIII - just so we won’t trouble our pretty little heads with the Covid reign of terror.


18 posted on 03/10/2022 3:26:55 AM PST by livius
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To: P-Marlowe

Excellent point.


19 posted on 03/10/2022 3:31:33 AM PST by MayflowerMadam (When government fears the people, there is liberty.)
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To: livius
I will never understand why Trump went along with the Covid insanity and then then didn’t fight back harder when he obviously had begun to realize that it was a politically motivated scam and a disaster. Instead he just handed over the government to Fauci.

That sounds like a great question until you go back to March of 2020 and remember that even many Freepers who are supposedly staunch conservative were among the most pathetic, gullible Branch Covidians I encountered.

It would have been political suicide for any national politician to run against the public hysteria at the time.

20 posted on 03/10/2022 3:37:01 AM PST by Alberta's Child ("Mr. Potato Head ... Mr. Potato Head! Back doors are not secrets.")
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