The hallmark of authoritarianism - Commentary
The COVID crisis has given Western governments many opportunities to experiment with and in varying degrees to implement authoritarianism. Governments have restricted many of the freedoms that we’ve taken for granted for as long as anyone can remember.
Forced quarantines and general lockdowns have restricted freedom of movement and freedom of assembly. Forced closures of houses of worship have curtailed our freedom to exercise religion. In many countries, including the United States, no laws were passed giving the government extraordinary powers. The executive branches of the federal and state governments instituted these restrictions by fiat.
Under the guise of protecting us from dangerous mis- and disinformation, governments have restricted freedom of speech. World renowned scientists have been vilified for not toeing the line of the official narrative.
Physicians have lost their licenses to practice medicine for prescribing drugs for off-label use instead of following the recommendations of the FDA and the WHO. Yet, according to the Congressional Research Service in a report published last year, “Credible researchers have estimated [off-label use] make up as little as 12% and as much as 38% of doctor-office prescriptions.” In other words, it is not uncommon for drugs to be prescribed for off-label use. Once the FDA approves a drug, physicians are permitted to use it for whatever they deem fit.
Until recently, governments have spoken about the dangers of misinformation but have left actual censorship to big tech companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google albeit encouraging said censorship.
Beginning with the Canadian government’s overreach in its recent crackdown against peaceful protesters in Ottowa and elsewhere, that has changed.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made it clear that the problem he had with the trucker protests and their supporters wasn’t anything specific they had done but rather their “unacceptable views” (i.e. dissenting views) that, according to Trudeau, were not those of the majority of Canadians. Trudeau could not abide dissenting views and so, suppressed them with brute force. He then had his government enact the Emergencies Act thus giving him the power to freeze bank accounts and restrict movement. The Emergencies Act was created to protect Canada against attacks on its sovereignty. Trudeau is using it to quash peaceful protests and opinions with which he does not agree.
Other governments are now jumping on the authoritarian bandwagon. Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel is set to sign off on a new bill that will ban so-called ‘anti-vaxxer’ protests from taking place at jab centers and schools. According to The Guardian, “Anti-vaxxers will be banned from ‘harmful and disruptive’ protests outside schools and vaccination clinics…”.
But this bill may have unintended (or possibly intended) consequences. As reported in Breibart, “One veterans’ group in the country fighting for equal pensions rights expressed concern that the ‘highly dangerous’ bill would have criminalized previous protests they held.
“‘During our protests over the summer, we had loads of banners and flags, it was very colourful and visible with huge posters of the Victoria Cross winners. Could that have been deemed too loud, too annoying or disruptive?’ asked one organiser.”
In the United States, Dr. Robert Califf, the new FDA commissioner, in his very first communication with his underlings wrote, "One important aspect of this commitment involves countering misinformation about science and the FDA that has become increasingly prevalent.” He continued, “These kinds of distortions and half-truths that find their way into the public domain do enormous harm, both by leading people to behavior that is detrimental to their health and by causing them to eschew interventions that would improve their health.”
Dr. Califf did not say how he would counter “misinformation”. He also did not make clear what he meant by “misinformation”.
What is considered misinformation is subject to change and has changed. At the beginning of the pandemic, writing that the Wuhan virus had its origins in a lab may have gotten your Facebook or Twitter account suspended. Now, that’s the accepted wisdom.
On October 18, 2019, a pandemic tabletop exercise that simulated a series of dramatic, scenario-based facilitated discussions, confronting difficult, true-to-life dilemmas associated with response to a hypothetical, but scientifically plausible, pandemic. The event was sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
According to the Center, “we modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic, but we explicitly stated that it was not a prediction.” They modeled this fictional coronavirus pandemic three months before the WHO declared the real coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) and five months before they declared it a pandemic .
This gathering, dubbed Event 201, published recommendations as to how governments and other organizations should prepare for a pandemic and for how to react to a pandemic.
Topics for which the organizers gave recommendations included advice on how to regulate dis- and misinformation.
“The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, World Economic Forum, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation jointly propose the following:
“Governments and the private sector should assign a greater priority to developing methods to combat mis- and disinformation prior to the next pandemic response. Governments will need to partner with traditional and social media companies to research and develop nimble approaches to countering misinformation… Trusted, influential private-sector employers should create the capacity to readily and reliably augment public messaging, manage rumors and misinformation, and amplify credible information to support emergency public communications…. For their part, media companies should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritized and that false messages are suppressed including though the use of technology.” (Emphasis added)
All the above have one thing in common. Governments, health organizations, the organizers of and participants in Event 201 and Big Tech know the truth and know what's best for us. We must submit to their authority at the expense of our individual freedom. Anyone who deviates is dangerous. This is the hallmark of authoritarianism.
