Freedom in a Post-Covid World

"Are we aware? And what are we going to do about it? The future of freedom itself hangs in the balance."

By Jeffrey A. Tucker, Brownstone Institute

The Covid era cut through traditional ideological paradigms like knives on tissue. Nothing behaved as we might have expected. The civil libertarians were nowhere in sight. The courts did not work. Big business and media fully cooperated. The major religions caved. The national security state thrived, while both parties let it all happen. The population was mercilessly propagandized and pillaged with no resistance from the commanding heights.

Seemingly out of nowhere, pharmaceutical companies revealed themselves as more powerful than any industrial monopoly in human history, capable of shutting down the entire world in order to panic people into consuming their product.

As for the old distinctions between the public and private sectors, they melted away. The state did not save us from large corporations and the top layers in commercial society did not save us from the state. They worked together to strangle the liberty of everyone else. Which was the hand and which was the glove was unclear throughout. As for the politicians, they were almost entirely useless, fearful only to save their own lives and careers, shovel money to their constituents, and otherwise hide under their sofas.

For the entire period, the protections we all assumed were there for our rights and liberties vanished, to be replaced by surveillance, censorship, mandates, subsidies, penalties, subterfuge, duplicity, deception, fake science, and nonstop psyops from agencies, media, influencers, medical associations, and screaming hacks from all corners. They recruited gendarmes from within the population to demand compliance and demonize non-compliance. Yes, it was Orwell come to life.

On the other hand, it was a learning experience. It sets up those who care about freedom to reframe the argument and re-understand both the threats and the answers in a different way than before, one that is more realistic. The powers that be showed their hand, revealed their goals, and tested out their dystopian plans. The schemes are still with us but at least we know now what they are and what we might do about them.

With some benefit of hindsight, and lessons learned from having lived through this, here is a suggested reframing of a pro-freedom outlook and agenda.

1. The Problem of Poisoning

We did not know it in the Spring of 2020 – though many OGs had their suspicions – that the lockdowns and ridiculous non-pharmaceutical interventions were all structured to pave the way for the pharmaceutical interventions. It was all about the vaccine all along, which is why the Great Barrington Declaration panicked the elites. It spoke of endemicity through natural immunity. The powers that be wanted only one solution, the shot, which is also why they took proven therapeutics off the market.

The driving engine of this industrial project was the pharmaceutical companies and their new toy: mRNA shots. Untested, experimental, and dangerous, they held out huge potential for infinitely scalable distribution. Covid was the industry’s chance to gain a foothold since the technology had not previously been approved.

The emergency provided the pretext to unleash the product on the population. No, it did not fix the problem and it caused unprecedented injury and death but an industrial taboo had been broken. Now the essential work is to normalize it and apply it ever more broadly as the fix for every malady.

Watching this unfold, other sectors have come under suspicion such as the food supply. Agriculture is similarly afflicted with chemicalization via cartels, including industrial pesticides for which the industry is currently seeking legal immunity for harms caused.

Patented products for fertilizers and genetically modified seeds are without precedent in the history of farming, even as traditional methods are legally deprecated and prohibited. We are once again being treated as lab rats in their experiments. The partisans of whole foods, raw milk, free-range chicken, and grass-fed beef are being treated like thrown-back anti-vaxxers who do their own research and reject The Science.

The narrative, the demonizations, the solutions: there is a direct analogy between the supposed cure for Covid and the cure for hunger. Both depend on chemical, pharmaceutical, and medical means to provide what should be entirely natural and born of tradition and human experience. Both are contributing to ill health. Just as we were warned of disease and death without Covid shots, we are being warned of coming famines unless we give these companies more legal privileges.

The trans issue too is essentially about an ideology of malleable sexuality backed by a lifetime of drugs, without which the entire illusion of changing gender would be impossible. You can render the seeming “culture war” behind this entire movement as nothing but another pharma scam.

The goal is always the same: power and profit. Nothing changes about the motive. Only the means by which they are realized mutates in the course of time. With growing noncompliance, the push for more mandates is ramping up. The pharma-funded American Academy of Pediatrics now demands nationwide mandates for what more families these days are convinced has harmed their children.

It’s no longer a stretch to say we are being systematically poisoned. This is being covered up, as any researcher who reveals the truth is banned from the journals and censored.

This is not only about our bodies; it’s also about our minds. Speaking of which: one in three kids and some 65 million adults are on psych meds that are not really medications offering cures but chemical methods of sedation that hobble the brain or create the illusion of hyperfunction. Even as the war on illicit drugs ramps up, licit means of chemically lobotomizing the population are on the increase and called science.

Step one: recognize the problem and methods. Step two: say no.

2. Biological Imperialism

Notice that all the above deal with invasions to the human body and mind via science and labs, all backed by hugely powerful industries that work directly with government. For the theoretically minded who seek to understand the bigger picture – in order to satisfy the taste for a big Hegelian theory to comprehend the unthinkable – we turn to Dr. Toby Rogers and his fascinating historical map.

Back when land and treasure were the hunted resources, great empires rose up to invade, pillage, and plunder for fun and profit, resulting in massive human suffering and carnage. The frontier was not all bloody; it inspires explorers and freedom seekers to discover and create.

In the 21st century, the frontier in land is gone and no part of the earth is undiscovered and unexploited. Where does the ruling class turn now? Mars is a stretch. The more immediate answer is cheaper and more accessible. It turns inward on its own people, toward the human person and his mind and body.

This creates the conditions for what Dr. Rogers called biological imperialism. It deploys the same methods as the empires of old but has a different target in mind: ourselves, our families, our neighbors.

Whereas conquerors of old needed only to show up with ships and armaments, the new empire has to seek cooperation and volitional adoption. That requires propaganda and a cover. Old empires rallied around king, country, and faith; the new bioempire celebrates science and laboratories. These are the faiths of our age so it makes sense that they would serve as the essential cover.

The business model is to offer the cure that makes people sick which requires another cure that makes people sick, in endless rounds. More and more potions and services are nothing but fixes for the previous botched fixes. It’s iatrogenesis as a path to permanent profit, all of which shows up in the data. The purveyors hope against hope you don’t detect the causal agents.

This is a war for your body. It’s all they have remaining to invade and control.

Step one: recognize the problem and methods. Step two: say no.

3. Administrative State

The permanent civil service was born in the age of democracy in the late 19th century. The purpose was to provide a buffer of stability between the exigencies of the plebiscite and the plot of politicians who claimed to represent them. It seemed to make sense to have an expert class in place to smooth out the excesses of populist rage but wars and economic crises caused them to grow and grow. They became the fourth branch of government, more powerful than the other three.

Mostly the administrative state has been too boring to attract excess public attention and too petty to excite much in the way of unified opposition. All that changed with Covid as flurries of edicts poured forth from the agencies. They were not laws and they came not from legislation. They were often just changes in “recommendations” posted on websites. But they profoundly affected our lives.

Out of nowhere, we were told to vote remotely, mask up, walk this way instead of that way in the grocery store, never hold house parties, refrain from going to concerts, avoid all crowds, don’t travel, and so on. It was passed off as health advice but it caused the cities to look post-apocalyptic. No politician voted on any of this, and no politician could tell the agencies to stop, not even the president.

Clearly we had a problem and still do. Democracy had become bureaucracy and government of, by, and for the people became a state within a state that serves itself and its industrial interests. So powerful had it become that it plotted to overthrow a sitting president, not only in the US but in many other countries. The administrative state used Covid to conduct quasi-coups the world over.

The Supreme Court has issued some excellent decisions that work toward some restraint. Maybe we see some progress here at least.

Step one: recognize the problem and methods. Step two: say no.

4. National Security State

What appeared to be a public health response was really a national security response, a fact which is proven in great depth by Debbie Lerman’s book The Deep State Goes Viral. Her account has been verified repeatedly by people who were there and watched it all unfold. Even the civilian bureaucracy was deceived concerning who was really calling the shots.

The documentation of this claim is hard to come by because it is most classified. Here is how the modern state works. The superficial stuff for public consumption appears on the internet. But there is an entire underworld of classified information seen only by people with security clearances. Even then, these people see only what pertains to their area. Sharing the information is prohibited. Even if one of these people tell you or me what’s there, they face prison and then we face jeopardy just by knowing.

If this sounds cloak and dagger, it is but this is not conspiracy theory. It is the reality of government in our times. Its most important functioning of state and its industrial partners is classified, trapped in locked cabinets and cloaked in NDAs. It is not easily unclassified. When it is, we have no clue if what is being revealed is a limited hangout or the whole enchilada. We just do not know.

One hopes that transparency in reality, not just in slogan, can become a major part of the freedom agenda in the future. A secret government is likely a corrupt government.

Step one: recognize the problem and methods. Step two: say no.

5. Technocracy

Early on with the domestic travel restrictions, crossing the state border meant getting a robocall from the sheriff’s office. It told you to quarantine for two weeks. It was also a heads-up: we know where you are thanks to the surveillance device you carry in your pocket. Odd: we once thought our cell phones were a convenience. We have discovered that they are our minders.

At the height of vaccine enforcement, American cities were segregated by compliance. New York, the first to close down public accommodations, instituted a digital vaccine passport. It was expensive and invasive. The plan was to roll the same out to Boston, D.C., Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New Orleans. Fortunately, the system was buggy and didn’t work. It was withdrawn.

New York had only a pilot program. No question that the plan was to institute these devices on a global basis. Just because it failed doesn’t mean they won’t try it again.

Financial surveillance is everywhere as is biometric data gathering. A friend wanted a Coke at the airport but the vending machine wanted his credit card and fingerprint. That fingerprint is worth far more than the resulting fizzy sugar water. There are no restrictions prohibiting private companies from selling to government.

The market for data is the most lucrative in the world, and the only one that competes with the size, scope, and power of pharma. Put them together and you have a seemingly unstoppable force that will take us straight to technocracy. Sometimes this technocratic agenda masks itself as anti-government: it’s bloated and incompetent so let’s let the AI experts in the private sector do it.

This is true for cryptocurrency too. It began as a freedom technology. A series of small changes forced it away from a peer-to-peer and unmediated currency to one housed and institutionalized, thus enabling surveillance as never before. Now the glorious innovation might become the worst nightmare of a programable money controlled by and serving the state.

The technocrats know the value of dividing the population by ideology and proposing themselves as the solution. Let’s get the machines to take the place of people! It’s already happening in vast areas of our lives. When the doctor sees you, he stares at the screen, not you. At the airport, you cannot find an employee with decision-making power. AI answers on the Internet have already taken the place of human-written content.

Step one: recognize the problem and methods. Step two: say no.

Freedom Means Unmediated Experiences

Tom Harrington is the author of The Treason of the Experts. He frames the problem and solution slightly differently. He says that the tyrants of our times seek to end unmediated human relationships: the family dinner table, physical meetings, a person reading a physical book, a newspaper, attendance at a play, human-created music, handmade crafts, plant-based medicines, raw and whole food, the wisdom of lived experience, and old-fashioned intuition.

All of this has to go, to be replaced by mediated experiences scripted by large institutions both public and private. This way, we are all dependent. Our lives can be turned on and off depending on the will of our masters. If that outlook sounds paranoid to you, even crazy, you have not been paying attention. This is precisely where we are headed.

Are we aware? And what are we going to do about it? The future of freedom itself hangs in the balance. Old ideological categories and systems are not of much use anymore. As we approach the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence, we need to rethink the very foundations of freedom, its threats, and what we are going to do in response.

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author.

This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. I may or may not own names I write about and are watching. Sometimes I’m bullish without owning things, sometimes I’m bearish and do own things. Just assume my positions could be exactly the opposite of what you think they are just in case. If I’m long I could quickly be short and vice versa. I won’t update my positions. All positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice and at any point I can be long, short or neutral on any position. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. If you see numbers and calculations of any sort, assume they are wrong and double check them. I failed Algebra in 8th grade and topped off my high school math accolades by getting a D- in remedial Calculus my senior year, before becoming an English major in college so I could bullshit my way through things easier.

The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.