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After a Year Under Lockdown, Will Our Freedoms Survive the Tyranny of COVID-19?

By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

“The remedy is worse than the disease.”—Francis Bacon

One way or another, the majority of Americans will survive COVID-19.

It remains to be seen, however, whether our freedoms will survive the tyranny of the government’s heavy-handed response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Indeed, now that the government has gotten a taste for flexing its police state powers by way of a bevy of lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, etc., we may all be long-haulers, suffering under the weight of long-term COVID-19 afflictions.

Instead of dealing with the headaches, fatigue and neurological aftereffects of the virus, however, “we the people” may well find ourselves burdened with a Nanny State inclined to use its draconian pandemic powers to protect us from ourselves.

Therein lies the danger of the government’s growing addiction to power.

What started out a year ago as an apparent effort to prevent a novel coronavirus from sickening the nation (and the world) has become yet another means by which world governments (including our own) can expand their powers, abuse their authority, and further oppress their constituents.

Until recently, the police state had been more circumspect in its power grabs, but this latest state of emergency has brought the beast out of the shadows.

It’s a given that you can always count on the government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured. Emboldened by the citizenry’s inattention and willingness to tolerate its abuses, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers.

The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands.

It doesn’t even matter what the nature of the crisis might be—civil unrest, the national emergencies, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters”—as long as it allows the government to justify all manner of government tyranny in the name of so-called national security.

This coronavirus pandemic has been no exception.

Not only have the federal and state governments unraveled the constitutional fabric of the nation with lockdown mandates that sent the economy into a tailspin and wrought havoc with our liberties, but they have almost persuaded the citizenry to depend on the government for financial handouts, medical intervention, protection and sustenance.

This past year under lockdown was a lesson in many things, but most of all, it was a lesson in how to indoctrinate a populace to love and obey Big Brother.

What started off as an experiment in social distancing in order to flatten the curve of this virus, and not overwhelm the nation’s hospitals or expose the most vulnerable to unavoidable loss of life scenarios quickly became strongly worded suggestions for citizens to voluntarily stay at home and strong-armed house arrest orders with penalties in place for non-compliance.

Every day brought a drastic new set of restrictions by government bodies (most have been delivered by way of executive orders) at the local, state and federal level that were eager to flex their muscles for the so-called “good” of the populace.

There was talk of mass testing for COVID-19 antibodies, screening checkpoints, mass surveillance in order to carry out contact tracing, immunity passports to allow those who have recovered from the virus to move around more freely, snitch tip lines for reporting “rule breakers” to the authorities, and heavy fines and jail time for those who dare to venture out without a mask, congregate in worship without the government’s blessing, or re-open their businesses without the government’s say-so.

To some, these may seem like small, necessary steps in the war against the COVID-19 virus, but they’re only necessary to the Deep State in its efforts to further undermine the Constitution, extend its control over the populace, and feed its insatiable appetite for ever-greater powers.

After all, whatever dangerous practices you allow the government to carry out now—whether it’s in the name of national security or protecting America’s borders or making America healthy again—rest assured, these same practices can and will be used against you when the government decides to set its sights on you.

Read the entire article HERE.

Wristbands and Dining Cards: New Army Policies Exclude, Isolate Unvaccinated

Via The Defender

The U.S. Army can’t legally mandate COVID vaccines, but restrictive policies like those at Fort Drum and Fort Bragg make it increasingly difficult for service members to refuse.

A March 17 memorandum from the commander at the U.S. Army’s Fort Drum reservation in New York lists privileges withheld from service members who refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine — an experimental Emergency Use Authorization product not proven to prevent infection or transmission of the COVID virus.

The memo, “Prohibited Activities for Personnel Within the Authority of the Commander, 10th Mountain Division and Fort Drum,” states:

• Fully vaccinated service members do not have “restriction of movement” or quarantine after travel and return to post. Unvaccinated must quarantine for 10 days and can test out after seven days of quarantine. “Family members must be able to quarantine with the service member (i.e. spouse cannot go to work, children cannot go to school).”
• Vaccinated service members only require an O-3 (captain or company commander) to approve their leave, while unvaccinated must request leave from a higher-ranking O-5 (lieutenant colonel or battalion commander) with an additional procedural step of submitting an Exception to Policy (ETP). These ETPs will be tracked at the division level for additional scrutiny, and likely will be denied.
• Vaccinated service members may meet with or host any non-local visitor from outside the five states contiguous to New York (New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont). Unvaccinated service members must obtain approval from an O-5 in their chain of command, and then enter a 10-day quarantine to meet with or reside with any non-local visitor.
• Vaccinated service members have no limits on gatherings at a private residence. Unvaccinated have a limit of 12 guests at indoor gatherings, and 15 guests at outdoor gatherings. ETPs may be granted for larger on-post public social gatherings by an O-5 commander, but If all personnel attending the gathering are vaccinated no ETP is required.
• Vaccinated service members can conduct outdoor physical training unmasked. Unvaccinated must wear masks during physical training. Vaccinated personnel may be authorized to conduct unmasked physical training at indoor facilities, “without unvaccinated personnel present.”
• Face masks may be removed if all people in a room are vaccinated.

Perhaps the most shocking item in the new policy is this: Fort Drum authorized a COVID wristband for vaccinated service members.

What’s happening at Fort Drum is bad enough, but maybe not as bad as the civil rights violation occurring against the unvaccinated at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division has made a vaccination card mandatory to enter a dining facility.

Because a majority of lower enlisted soldiers don’t have access to kitchens in the barracks, they are dependent on the dining facilities for most, if not all of their meals while on duty or in training rotations which don’t provide access to public restaurants.

This mandate will disproportionately affect lower-income personnel who may have to trade accepting an experimental vaccine in order to have food.

Read the entire article HERE.

Buttigieg’s Idea To Tax How Much You Drive Isn’t About Revenue, It’s About Control

Via The Federalist

Beneath the supposed good reason they give for changing how drivers are taxed is the real reason they want the change: driving offers people too much freedom.

President Joe Biden has proven he’s a fan of dropping taxpayer cash from helicopters. He’s also shown no signs of slowing down, with the latest push being for trillions of dollars in infrastructure spending. Transportation Secretary Buttigieg, né Mayor Pete, floated some ideas about how to raise taxes on drivers to help fund this.

In comments to CNBC, Buttigieg signaled support for moving away from consumption-based gasoline taxes to taxes based on usage. In other words, he wants to tax people for how much they drive. Doing so, he said, “[S]hows a lot of promise if we believe in that so-called user-pays principle: The idea that part of how we pay for roads is you pay based on how much you drive.”

After facing immediate backlash, Buttigieg quickly backed off the idea, telling CNN’s Jake Tapper a mileage tax is “not part of the conversation about this infrastructure bill.” But that doesn’t mean it’s not far off, and it’s worth digging into.

The biggest problem with paying per mile is that we already pay based on how much we drive. It’s a not-so-little thing called the gasoline tax, and you pay it every time you fill up. But for the big spenders around the country, particularly given how COVID has changed driving patterns, the gas tax is proving insufficient. Now, they’re looking for new ways to bring home the bacon.

While they’ll tell you it’s about potholes — and Buttigieg is certainly no stranger to potholes — it’s likely that Biden’s infrastructure proposal will contain lots of things not related to infrastructure, much like the recently-passed COVID relief bill. It’s just how they roll.

Yet it’s not how we, as Americans, should roll. Instead, we should flip the spike strip back on any technocrats attempting to foist this on us. We shouldn’t resist just because the idea would have punished drivers and car manufacturers for responding to pushes for increased fuel efficiency. It’s not just because government-funded roads are financed with theft. It’s not even because the idea of tracking us while we drive is creepy and authoritarian.

It’s Not About Revenue, It’s About Control

Read the entire article HERE.

Why Is Everyone In Texas Not Dying?

Via True Pundit

I’m sitting at a bar in Texas, surrounded by maskless people, looking at folks on the streets walking around like life is normal, talking with nice and friendly faces, feeling like things in the world are more-or-less normal. Cases and deaths attributed to Covid are, like everywhere else, falling dramatically.

If you pay attention only to the media fear campaigns, you would find this confusing. More than two weeks ago, the governor of Texas completely reversed his devastating lockdown policies and repealed all his emergency powers, along with the egregious attacks on rights and liberties.

There was something very un-Texan about those lockdowns. My hotel room is festooned with pictures of cowboys on horses waving guns in the air, along with other depictions of rugged individualism facing down the elements. It’s a caricature but Texans embrace it. Then a new virus came along – as if that had never happened before in Texas – and the new Zoom class took the opposite path, not freedom but imposition and control.

After nearly a year of nonsense, on March 2, 2021, the governor finally said enough is enough and repealed it all. Towns and cities can still engage in Covid-related mischief but at least they are no longer getting cover from the governor’s office.

At that moment, a friend remarked to me that this would be the test we have been waiting for.

A complete repeal of restrictions would lead to mass death, they said. Would it? Did the lockdowns really control the virus? We would soon find out, he theorized.

I knew better. The “test” of whether and to what extent lockdowns control the virus or “suppress outbreaks” (in Anthony Fauci’s words) has been tried all over the world. Every serious empirical examination has shown that the answer is no.

Read the entire article HERE.

Vendors Selling Bricks, Molotovs Outside Derek Chauvin Trial

Via The Babylon Bee

MINNEAPOLIS, MN—”Bricks, get yer bricks here, 2 for 10, 2 for 10!” cries John Braxton, 42, as he mills through a Minneapolis crowd gathered outside a courthouse. “Fine bricks, get yer fine bricks here!”

Braxton, like dozens of other concession vendors, down on their luck after a year of low-attendance and no-attendance sports games, has come to Minneapolis to sell his wares to the crowds waiting outside Derek Chauvin’s murder trial. Instead of popcorn and cotton candy, though, he’s selling bricks, Molotov cocktails, and pitchforks. He’s turned in his Cracker Jacks for brass knuckles, his beer for bricks, and his Minnesota Twins foam fingers for foam fingers reading “Black Lives Matter.”

“Honestly, I’m gonna make a fortune,” said Braxton as he sold ten bricks to a white kid visiting from Portland for the show and riot. “These guys are gonna riot no matter what happens in the trial here, so I’m gonna make out like a bandit.”

A 17-year-old Antifa rioter then waved that he wanted two bricks, and Braxton hurled them in his direction. Unfortunately, the Antifa rioter never had a father figure in his life, and so didn’t know how to catch them and was hit square in the face.

“Oop! Sorry, son,” Braxton said.

“Molotovs, get yer Molotovs, hottest Mollies around!” he called out as he moved on through the crowd, selling his goods in hopes of a better life.

Check out all of the Bee’s takes on a world gone made HERE.

Be sure to stop by at Def-Con News to get our morning started off right.