RECENT EVENTS have challenged many of my preconceptions, shaken previous articles of faith to the core, and made me re-examine an annoyingly inconvenient number of long-held assumptions.
Given the inexplicable, senseless, punitive and draconian behaviour of our governments over the past year, I cannot blame anyone for trying to discern a theory that does make sense of it all, no matter how far-fetched. Far-fetchedness itself had to up its game recently – if 18 months ago I had predicted we’d be where we are now, that our governments would do what they’ve done, that our society would have responded in the way that it has, you’d have thought I was certifiably insane.
I am a tiny speck of a single human, and I can’t count the times this year I have watched aghast as inexorably unfolding measures harm the most vulnerable and I have bitterly asked, ‘Why are they doing this?’
Here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter.
Current reality, what is happening right now in front of our noses is bad enough to be worth fighting against. Nothing more should be needed to get you off your backside and up doing something, fighting for our liberty and human rights, making a stand for our children’s health and freedom.
We don’t need to identify an evil genius behind it all, or a sinister globalist masterplan, it’s the ordinary evil we must fight, that committed everyday by governments, organisations and functionaries – even, perhaps especially, with the best of intentions. I have always been inclined to believe the adage ‘never ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity’, along with Sir Humphrey’s explanation of political logic (Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, it must be done). As banal as it sounds, I think we just had a perfect storm.
I think it went something like this:
An engineered virus; an unintended lab escape; China panics; West over-reacts; citizens are so terrified they call for ever harsher measures; power goes to politicians’ heads; widespread global saviour complex kicks in; deals are awarded to known associates because speed is of the essence; businesses do what good businesses do and jump on opportunities; unions leap in to get the best outcomes for their members; the NHS pivots all its resources in the face of this singular threat; well-meaning individuals put their shoulders to the narrative wheel; a virtuous circle of who can be most safe emerges and different countries compete to do the most, save the most – at any cost – because surely the more you do the better it is? In the time-honoured tradition of never letting a good crisis go to waste, organisations capitalise on the situation and seek to further their sincerely held aims; the media scoops up the mega millions in government messaging and enjoys the undiluted and transfixed attention of the captive public as it illustrates – so very vividly – just how bad everything is: and here we all are on this macabre rollercoaster ratcheting up billions in debt with every loop while crushing the poorest and youngest on the downturns, all in the righteous cause of staying safe.
And now the ride is slowing as the track levels out, and we start to peek between our fingers at the obscene cost of the collateral damage we have inflicted on other humans, in our country and across the world, who is going to be brave enough to stick their head up, peer backwards, and say ‘hang on a minute, lads, are we absolutely sure all this was necessary?’
They would be torn to shreds.
Teenage children died alone in hospital for this, grandparents didn’t see their grandchildren for over a year for this, weddings were cancelled, small businesses bankrupted, savings lost, unemployment and redundancies raged across the country, relationships poisoned. People raised toddlers in high rise blocks with thin walls for a year for this, consumption of alcohol and drugs soared, depression got its claws into record numbers of young and old alike. Elderly dementia patients wept in incomprehension at their abandonment as their families were forbidden to see them, hundreds of thousands of cancer cases have gone undetected, women were trapped with their abusive partners, children malnourished for a year for this. Mothers were forced to give birth wearing masks for this, adolescents spiralled into loneliness, university students perched on their beds being taught online for a year for this. People were reduced to pulling out their own teeth for this, children went untaught and even easier prey to drugs and gangs, widows sat alone uncomforted at the funerals of their husbands for this.
That it might all have been for nothing is just too dreadful to contemplate. Ever.
So we won’t. We will accept without challenge that all this carnage was alas necessary, that it was the only way out, that if we hadn’t done this the death toll would have been cataclysmic. In fact, our mistake was that we didn’t do enough! We should have locked down sooner, harder, longer. Scream if you want to go faster.
What’s done is done, and cannot be undone.
My greatest fear, however, is that we will do it again. I fear, that because we are unable to look unflinchingly at the mistakes we have made, we will go on to make worse ones.
The unquestioning push to roll out the novel vaccines to those groups at no risk at all from Covid – to healthy young people, children and babies – especially when we do not know the long-term safety data, would be just the first of those mistakes. And actually, the word mistake is wrong in this context. If we do this, we would be committing not a mistake but a crime. The magnitude of the violation of moral and medical ethics that it would represent beggars belief, and would send us hurtling down the track once more, this time to an unknown and very dark destination.
Because if we can inject children with substances about which we do not know the long-term consequences, when they are not in danger and for no benefit to themselves whatsoever, then we can do anything.
I want to ask you something. Please, have a think about whether there is anything you can do or anything you can say in your daily life, as a fellow tiny speck of a single human, that could start to put the brakes on this. It doesn’t matter how insignificant you feel it is: your example can be just what inspires another to speak out, to act, to resist.
And now is the time for action, no matter how small. I wish I believed that with flatlining ICU Covid numbers we could relax, let our governments lift restrictions and just get back to living the old normal. But Public Health England has protocols in place to start vaccinating 12-year-olds this September, and yesterday in the House of Commons a former Health Secretary proposed that vaccinating the over 12s be considered in order to prevent possible school closures.
I fear we will only have one shot to stop the gathering momentum of this mindless pursuit of an undefined mirage of Safety before we all pick up speed and start careering downwards again, and this time we really do go to Hell.
This article was first published last week on Helen Gray’s blog cakeandliberty.org where her writing can be accessed regularly.
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