How Political Theorists Let Us Down During COVID-19
The reason I originally wrote something about COVID-19 back in 2020 was because I could see no one writing about it at the level I wanted to see it written about. There was, of course, plenty of good political journalism. I listened to Hitchens, read Sumption, looked at Lockdown Sceptics every day. But there was nothing at the level of political theory. Well, almost no-one: there was the great Georgio Agamben. Every other political theorist or political philosopher or whatever you want to call them, remained silent. And this struck me as odd. I mean, off the top of my head, what about Quentin Skinner or Philip Pettit? They were always writing about liberty and, moreover, writing about the importance of understanding liberty as not being under the will of others, not being dominated by others. And yet, surely, we were dominated during COVID-19?
But the great men were silent.
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Covid 19 Media Hyped the Fear
Media is the virus was a good slogan.
Very interesting.
For the bloke on the Clapham omnibus, covid was either a severe cold, an influenza like illness, or a disease as deadly as SARS.
Of course we must continue to fight neorepublicanism because its high priests: functionaries, academics, medics overruled the weak and feeble neoliberal that we had elected with an eighty seat majority. They used all the organs of state control to persuade the man on the bus that his not unusual winter virus was a deadly disease worthy of a response derived from the fighting of Ebola.
The covid response was a neorepublican coup and we are still in its thrall.
All very well, Professor Alexander, in the rarified heights of academia, but…
…Out here in the boondox, The Pandemic That Never Was was clearly bollox from the moment the local public library put “The History Boys”, ordered a week earlier after chancing across the movie on late-night TV, into 72-hour quarantine, to Stop The Spread of a respiratory virus with little precedent for surface transmission or asymptomatic spread.
Copy later obtained on eBay after library shut for duration 48 hours later. Art 1 Pandemic 0. Game on. As the Oxbridge mock interview with the rugby fly-half goes:
“Teacher: How do define history, Mr Rudge?
Mr Rudge: It’s just one bloody thing after another.”
Twenty-twenty vision and fighter-pilot’s eyes.
Political theory is quite simple.
Accrue power, crush your enemies, demonise those who oppose you.
This is exactly what happened during the Corona Plandemic Fascism.
Fascism. That is what it was. Arcane political theory and enormous tomes repeating the obvious notwithstanding.
“In fact, it turns out that the people who opposed COVID-19 were liberals”
Really???
It was liberal governments and their liberal media that promoted the Covid con.
Libertarians from the left and right were the ones opposing it.
” Either you are a slave, or you are free.”
Quite so. Which is why bodily autonomy is a core human right. If denied, that state can violate your body, ergo you are a slave.
I was surprised that Dr Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance didn’t speak out about the Covid PsyOp, Godfrey Bloom did (being a member) remember his videos early on with his WW1 Gas Masks. Gabb did reply on Youtube when I asked where he was hiding, can’t remember the reply but the PsyOp obviously went over his head.
http://libertarian.co.uk/
Seems to me like Pettit and Skinner are idiots. Clever idiots of which so many appeared during COVID.
I used to read a “swear” blog called The Devil’s Kitchen written by Chris Mounsey. Whether agreeing or disagreeing with his posts – it was always a fun read. He was a big fan of chucking a naked Blair into waters teaming with Candiru fish. I digress.
He wrote a piece some 20 years ago arguing that living in a country where people are free was far more important than living in a democracy. When you look at the gerrymandering of European elections against right wing parties and the persecution of people with right of centre views (in so-called democracies) – this viewpoint is especially valid for these times.
Broadly speaking, I just want the state to bugger off and leave me alone to make my own decisions in life – as long as they don’t harm others.
Oh my goodness, these academics are just living in their masked up covid bubble. One question, an obvious one – what if these ivory tower residents did say something loud? What would the government do anyway? Boris was so terrified after his hospital stay (nice cosy private room with TV etc.), and with his weaker than weak governance skills, and the predatory parliament full of useless politicians, do you think they would read whatever these theorists might publish?
The lone voices were shut down and cancelled. One of them is now the head of NIH in the US of A.
If political scientists kept quiet during the Covid-19 pandemic then they are to be commended. Dealing with a new virus is not a problem for the philosopher but for a good public health physician with a grasp of the complex nature of viral pandemics. Many mistakes were made, of course, but in the early months the trajectory of the pandemic could not be predicted with the accuracy that the retrospectroscope allows. The first mistake was to use a mathematical model developed for smallpox to predict the course of a very different disease. A second mistake was to assume the severe systemic disease seen in the elderly was due to a systemic viral infection. In fact the viral infection was purely respiratory but the virus amplified pre-existing inflammation (caused by the mucosal tissue microbiota) to produce a systemic disease. The third mistake was to underestimate the spread of the virus. It spread very rapidly through the community in early 2020 and by the autumn of 2020 most of the population had been exposed to the original Wuhan strain and had developed partial immunity. The production of a vaccine by early 2021 was a triumph of science and I for one was… Read more »
I didn’t take any of their contaminated mRNA junk.
I looked at the evidence from various sources – but one in particular was key to my response and that was the good ship the Diamond Princess
Here is the Wikipedia link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_on_Diamond_Princess
A large number of mainly elderly people were sequestrated on the ship which served as a laboratory for the disease – not many people died and the mortality rate was miniscule – not so deadly then.
The vaccines were given Emergency Use Authorisation – which could only be given if there were no available alternative treatments – but there were and some of them very successful so they were banned and anyone promulgating them were reputationally destroyed.
So the EUA was invalid and led to the disaster which followed.
There is too much else for me to go into – trust your gut not the government.
Caveat emptor does it for me,
Average age of death well into the 80s with several other diseases included. Children totally unaffected, adults pretty much unaffected. Total deaths compared to previous years no difference. It was a disgusting hyped up nonevent designed to frighten people into taking a dangerous but very lucrative medical treatment and an experiment in compliance. The whole thing was a bloody great scam just like the climate nonsense is now. End of. Those responsible should be locked up and the keys hurled over the nearest cliff.
As one of the intellectual ruling elite said during the covid debacle “Freedom is overrated”. Too many are willing to trade some or all for a bit of government welfare or socialism. Some are willing to give it all away for a pitance as long as they get someone to look after them. Covid wage supplements, people loved them, in fact, it’s still hard to get many back from the welfare state.