One year since this insanity started. I think all I can do is repeat the comment I left over at Samizdata.
Despite my underlying cynicism, I was still surprised by the eagerness with which my fellow countrymen accepted totalitarianism. Embraced even. And the willingness to vilify any dissent and to spy on and report neighbours, the stupidity with which they uncritically accepted whatever bullshit the likes of Ferguson, Vallance and Whitty spouted even when the evidence for it being wrong was staring them in the face. This has been the year when junk science became the national religion. My mild misanthropy of last year has morphed into loathing.
The lies, the propaganda, the despotism that we have endured has been accepted – rejoiced even – by a bovine majority who haven’t a critical thinking cell between them. Already we are having to accept that this will continue as they vote in parliament to extend the act and it will go through, because there are too few people who value liberty. And already – as if on cue, we get warnings of the third wave. Well, of course, what did you expect?
Humanity is a lumpen, ignorant mass wandering aimlessly about wearing stupid, ineffective masks as they virtue signal their way about the cesspit of social media. A lumpen mass governed by psychopaths.
Convince me that I’m wrong.
You are not wrong.
That last sentence (the one before ‘Convince me that I’m wrong’) is perfect. You are not wrong.
Biggest thing for me too, seeing how my fellow English rolled over and accepted this.
Even worse, family members that I previously considered smart believe it all, and thats when the data that disproves gubbmint claims is freely available on various gubbmint websites.
It’s astonishing to me that in an age of easily accessible data, nobody even bothers to look.
It’s not really even a lack of critical thinking as such, just blind acceptance. Don’t understand it at all.
There’s a bit in Gulag Archipelago that covers it, ie what would have happened if the tyranny were resisted early on? But I’ve seen almost no sign of it, maybe 3 or 4 serious journalists at the most on the freedom side.
Gulag Archipelago probably isn’t the best book to read during lockdwon though.
Indeed, when information is freely available, ignorance has never been so rife and so proudly displayed.
I’m not the smartest guy in the world but I’m smart enough to know that I’m not that smart.
There is a much bigger number of people who are not smart enough to know they’re not smart, and they are the menace.
Indeed. The Dunning-Kruger Effect.
But they are so damned sure of themselves when they use words like “selfish” and “safety” no matter how much you point to the evidence. These are the people who accused Boris Johnson of being an habitual liar yet now cling on his every utterance as if it is manna from heaven.
It’s not just Dunning-Kruger, it’s also the Stockholm effect.
Indeed you are not wrong.
You are wrong.
The majority maybe. But the is a significant minority, some of whom are your readers, who venture from the official line, and can see the contradictions, mule-headedness, and outright lies.
And the cracks are forming.
We will see who stands out in silence, tonight?, in memory of those sent back to nursing homes to share the benefit, those killed by forced ventilation and with-holding of known simple cheap drugs and vitamins, those denied diagnosis of severe physical and mental illnesses.
All hail the Great SAGE, PHE, WHO, the anti Orange Man, the Modellers with their Sinclair Spectrums and cage of dice.
Bitter? Moi?
As apocalypses go, this one is positively pedestrian. I saw an image https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/03/new-visual-compares-worlds-deadliest-pandemics-population-impact-covids-placement-may-surprise/ on this website that compared the current “Sky is Falling!” to some very real pandemics. Kung Flu is barely a blip.
(Forgive the link etc but I thought you may find it interesting).
I was thinking this just earlier today. If they behave like this over what is effectively (on the risk to the continued existence of society level) a bit of a sniffle, what are they going to do when something really nasty shows up? Something that actually kills 5% of those infected, or 10% or more?
The claim was that the majority held the blind obedience view, so I don’t see how it’s wrong.
There are cracks appearing though, but I’m unsure whether there is enough resistance. There isn’t, as far as I can see, a means of disseminating the message of freedom to a wider audience, there are no mainstream channels available and those that the propagandized frequent are far from free.
There are no major uncompromised mediansources that I’m aware of. The only way that I’ve been able.to.find the truth is by doing some stats myself from ONS/Robert Koch institute.
Fortunately I have a fairly heavy duty background in statistics/maths, but most don’t. Unless there’s a possibility of getting a plausible statistician on to the MSM I fear we are doomed.
If humanity really is A lumpen mass governed by psychopaths’ what is the solution then? Or if we are such a flawed, doomed species should we all just get it over with and top ourselves en masse?
I don’t know. All I do know is that there is little if any will to push back against this insanity. We are very much a minority. The vacuous virtue signalling I see on a daily basis gives me no cause for hope.
I too see no cause for hope. This is a slow burn, started probably 50s/60s, before my time so I’m not really sure. It’s quite possibly too far gone to stop, but as with all plans of a similar ilk, they’re doomed to failure.
One hopes said failure isn’t to painful.
Therein lies the problem in that we on the right/anti-woke side have no effective way to counter their ideology (we can point out the flaws but they are just dismissed) and haven’t since the death of religion. Our ideas work but they don’t give the same sense of purpose or meaning that the left’s new religion provides to its adherents.
“And already – as if on cue, we get warnings of the third wave”
And there was me thinking we were spending billions to vaccinate everyone to prevent there being any further ‘waves’ at all………..with one had they constantly tell us these vaccines are wonderful and 90 whatever % successful at preventing covid, everyone must be vaccinated for the common good blah blah blah, and out of the other corner of their mouths they tell us to be pretrified of third (and subsequent) ‘waves’. I mean they’re not even trying to make their BS be even slightly internally consistent are they?
As for the masses, what do you expect after 60 years of ‘comprehensive’ education? I’d hazard a guess that despite all the billions spent on ‘education for all’ to university level for c. 50% of the public we are as a society less able to think for ourselves than the pre-WW2 era working classes were.
Dear Mr Longrider
Zero unhappy returns on this anniversary of a day of infamy.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/189200946@N04/50998039340/in/dateposted-public/
Note that 85+ and 75-84 weekly deaths are now below the average of the previous 5 years (-525 and -124). Only the 45-64 age group is significantly above the average: +219.
I despise my government and all who grow rich within it at our expense.
Trashing the economy is a small part of the cost: they have trashed our society and culture, they have destroyed the very meaning and purpose of life itself; social gatherings of social beings, meeting up with friends and relatives, celebrating births, marriages and mourning deaths together. Partying, going to concerts, on holiday anywhere in the world, meeting in groups, small and large, without fear and with un-nappied faces.
They have replaced it with a world of fear and loathing.
They are bastards, the lot of them. May they burn in hell.
DP
You are not wrong and you are not alone
Two great posts today:
and