The Rise of Statism and the Reduction of the Individual

We all should be alarmed at government overreach in the corona crisis:

“Gathering outdoors is the next freedom to be restored,” said a front-page article from the Daily Telegraph. Um, am I the only one who was shocked by that sentence – and others like it? Gosh, isn’t that swell of the State to allow us to go outside a bit. So very kind of them.

Um, since when was it the right of governments to simply take away our right to freely assemble as we decide in the first place? Am I now supposed to grovel before the State and thank them profusely if they take away my right to eat or breathe and then ever so graciously give it back – if I behave?

I have said it before and I will keep saying it (no matter how much the alarmists dislike me for doing so): The two most shocking things about the corona crisis are these: one, the absolute speed and ease in which governments have shut down and locked down entire nations; and two, the ready, eager and unquestioning acceptance of all this by the masses.

BTW, I have been saying this for several months now. However, just moments ago I saw a brand-new article by Dennis Prager in which he says this: “But the ease with which police state tactics have been employed and the equal ease with which most Americans have accepted them have been breathtaking.” Hmm, we sure seem to be on the same page here.

And all this has utterly shocked me and saddened me. Yes it really has. Worse yet, I fully realise that the only thing so many folks are worried about is when their beloved footy team will be playing again. But there actually are some things that matter a whole lot more. Like freedom. Like the individual. Like democracy. Like the rule of law. Like the ability to think for oneself and ask questions.

But far too many folks really do not seem to give a rip that so much of this is being taken away from us. The masses just do not seem to care. The sheeple could not be bothered with even raising an eyebrow here. Too many simply trust the government implicitly. ‘My country right or wrong’ has now morphed into ‘My State right or wrong.’

And even more shocking is how many Christians have fallen into line here. ‘Well the government said it, so it must be right. Who am I to question?’ And, ‘Why are you so worried about technology? What could ever go wrong?’ Hmm, why do I suspect that far too many of these naïve, apathetic and undiscerning believers would just as happily intone, ‘The State is my shepherd’?

Or as Ben Davis has recently put it:

Our Government in Canberra,
Hallowed be thy name,
Give us this day our daily support payments,
And increase our debts.
Lead us not into temptation to violate your stay at home orders,
But deliver us from COVID-19.
For the power and glory are yours,
Amen

Yes, there is a place for taking sensible precautions, for some government intervention, and for some limited restrictions on our liberties. I have been saying this from day one as well. But we seem to have gone far beyond this. If the State tells us to download a questionable app, most folks will do it. If the State tells us to snitch on our neighbours, most folks will do it. If the State tells us that we cannot leave our homes unless the State allows us to, most folks will do it.

And when Big Tech and the Big State get into bed together and fully support each other in this draconian overreach and abuse of power, then you know we really are getting to the end of freedom as we know it. I have been documenting this for quite a while now, but for too many folks it simply goes in one ear and out the next.

Let me offer just one scary case in point of what we are up against. For a few days now I – and millions of others – have shared a very important, fact-filled video of two California doctors sharing informed, balanced and evidence-filled concerns about the accepted narrative on corona.

They have dared to ask how a nation-wide lockdown makes any sense, based on all that we now know about COVID-19, how it spreads, who is really at risk, and so on. It was seen over 5.5 million times. But then YouTube decided that you – the people – are too stupid and it is too dangerous to have a video like this being seen.

So they pulled it. The head honcho said that only points of view that go along with groups like WHO will be allowed. Um, if anyone thinks that WHO has handled this whole crisis well, they need to go to the back of the class. Here is just one of many pieces on the appallingly bad way that WHO has dealt with this: https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/09/why-the-who-is-a-danger-to-public-health/

And see this damning expose of the head of WHO: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/10/5-shocking-facts-about-who-chief-tedros-adhanom-ghebreyesus/

But the censors and mind-controllers at YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and so on have all decided that certain ideas and points of view are now verboten. The people will NOT be allowed to get a differing point of view. You will only be allowed to hear what the State thinks you should hear. But I refuse to submit, and the full 68-minute video can be seen here: https://newtube.app/user/anthony/GlkxUvo

Please watch it and share it. One article explains the situation with this pulled video:

Drs. Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi … decried California’s COVID-19 related lockdown in particular on medical and economic grounds. Part 1 carried the heart of the doctors’ remarks in about 50 minutes…. They focused on their own experience and widened the discussion to take in California generally. They made many of the same points we have been making here over the past month, but tied the discussion to their experience as physicians and owners in the business of treating patients in need of urgent care.

Laura Ingraham invited Dr. Erickson on for a segment of her FOX News show last night, and she got action! As events transpired, she was able to report in real time that YouTube had removed the viral part 1 video following the segment — for violating YouTube’s terms of service, of course. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/04/was-it-something-he-said-4.php

Another Fox News host who has constantly been trying to sound the alarm on all this is Tucker Carlson. This short video clip is also must-viewing and must-sharing: https://video.foxnews.com/v/6152742822001

In it he examines the collusion of Big Tech and Big Government, discusses the censored video, and then says this: “Of all the many ironies of this moment, so many of them bitter, the hardest to swallow is this one: As we fight this virus, we are becoming far more like the country that spawned it – we are becoming more like China. It’s horrifying.”

I mentioned just above a new piece by Dennis Prager. Let me speak to it a bit further. In it he offers these 4 signs of a police state:

No. 1: Draconian laws depriving citizens of elementary civil rights.
No. 2: A mass media supportive of the state’s messaging and deprivation of rights.
No. 3: Use of police.
No. 4: Snitches.

He concludes the article this way:

It is said that about 1 in every 100 East German citizens were informers for the Stasi, the East German secret police, as superbly portrayed in the film “The Lives of Others.” It would be interesting, and, I think, important, to know what percentage of New Yorkers informed on their fellow citizens. Now, again, you may think such a comparison is not morally valid, that de Blasio’s call to New Yorkers to serve a Stasi-like role was morally justified given the coronavirus pandemic. But you cannot deny it is Stasi-like or that, other than identifying spies during World War II, this is unprecedented in American history at anywhere near this level.

This past Friday night, I gathered with six others for a Shabbat dinner with friends in Santa Monica, California. On my Friday radio show, I announced I would be doing that, and if I was arrested, it would be worth it. In my most pessimistic dreams, I never imagined that in America, having dinner at a friend’s house would be an act of civil disobedience, perhaps even a criminal act. But that is precisely what happens in a police state. https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2020/04/28/our-dress-rehearsal-for-a-police-state-n2567744

Lastly, let me take that final point about snitching and share what another writer has said about it:

That is not America. In East Germany, the Communists built a collective of informants. In the Soviet Union, informing on your neighbors and even your parents proved your loyalty to the state. This behavior has no place here. We’re Americans. Our first allegiance is not to the state, but to each other. In America, treason is not a betrayal of the state, but of the rights of the individual to be free of the state. Socialists betray the individual to the state and their pandemic response reinforces that first betrayal of the individual. It is no coincidence that the 1-800-INFORM phenomenon has taken root in the blue parts of the country. The culture of informants values the collective and suppresses the individual.

To the socialist, governments never fail. The experts are always wise and the public officials all-knowing. Government only fails because individuals subvert, sabotage, and undermine its well-meaning efforts. The informant helps the authorities redirect the blame for their failures by locating individual scapegoats. A nation of informants can only arise in a socialist system where people put the state first. They scowl and plot against their neighbors, spying and informing on them for the freedom they feel in their souls. The pandemic is a threat to the body of the nation, but 1-800-INFORM threatens the soul. https://thewashingtonstandard.com/1-800-inform-report-your-neighbors-to-authorities-its-the-un-american-way/

There are so many things happening right now that should concern every single one of us. And what concerns me so very much is that so few people seem concerned at all!

[1681 words]

18 Replies to “The Rise of Statism and the Reduction of the Individual”

  1. If [insert name of politician i.e. Daniel Andrews] can suspend your rights any time [he/she[ deems something a crisis .. you don’t have rights. You have permissions.

  2. Fantastic Bill. I’m surprised they haven’t taken you off the net yet.
    Ill be sending this article to all those I know. Whether they read it and understand it is another thing…..

  3. Dear Bill, Thank you for the article. Keep them coming! I think the reason the masses have unquestioningly accepted the government’s actions is through an irrational fear deliberately stirred up by the MSM. This irrational fear which has so easily been stirred up is because basically the majority of Australians have become a godless people and have no real trust in or love for Our Lord Jesus who promised He would watch over us until the end of the world. I know this sounds arrogant and I apologise if it does but a clearly defined Christianity through regular prayer, knowledge of the scriptures especially the ten commandments and an active love of neighbour which means everyone is VERY necessary to prevent Christianity being pushed to the margins of society as it is today.

    I also thought that the QLD Premier sounded like a dictator in her last address. “If anyone is caught flouting the rules we won’t hesitate to re – introduce them again” or words to that effect. She could have chosen her words better. It doesn’t take much for power to go to the heads of politicians.

    I live in hope that there is enough wisdom and good in the world to overcome the evil that has caused this pandemic in the first place because I can’t help wondering if it didn’t happen by accident. I listened to the two doctors and they made sense to me.

  4. One of your best Bill!

    I was staggered and saddened by the insistence last night of Paul Murray, a faux Conservative commentator on SkyNews “Paul Murray Live”, that everyone should simply trust the government and download the Covid19 tracking APP on to their mobiles. To not do so he intimated was tantamount to treason!!

    The sooner we all do that the quicker our freedoms will be restored said he!

    Meanwhile fellow SkyNews commentators Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and Richo never mentioned the dangers of doing such a thing at all! No wonder the Socialists among us are winning the battle against our freedoms.

    Whatever happened to that ANZAC spirit, the robust anti-authority attitude that was once the envy of other peoples?

    In New Zealand the reaction to having just some of their hard-fought-for freedoms reluctantly returned to them was to passively queue for hours to buy takeaway Macca’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

    My grandfather, uncle, and father gave up their lives for this?

    I too remain surprised you are still allowed to be up on the internet – if you keep up speaking the truth and warning of the dangers ahead you won’t be for long I’d wager??

    How long will Tucker Carlson last on air? He’s a man about to be silenced.

    The fulfillment of Revelation 13 is rushing in upon us and nobody seems to be noticing so long as the footy can start again!

    What an appalling tragedy we are witnessing?

  5. Thanks Michael. Yes Tucker is absolutely terrific. But Murray is at best 50 per cent conservative, and he has been quite disappointing on the corona crisis. And yes most of the Sky News folks have no probs with government apps, etc. But thankfully Andrew Bolt has for the most part been very strong on the Statist overreaction and heavy-handedness.

  6. The battle is between those who assert that the law is king (Lex Rex) and those who assert that the king is the law (Rex Lex). That reminds me of a book I mean to read. There is a great need to equip ourselves in regards understanding the Christian view of government.

    By the way, it doesn’t really matter if it is a premier rather than a king claiming to be the law. A democratically elected tyrant is still a tyrant.

  7. Good on you, Bill. The only thing I worry about is that ‘they’ will snatch you away. Your courage and commitment in speaking the truth is legendary and well known. You can’t hide now. More than you think, there is a silent minority who do share your views and value your leadership and ability to enunciate them. I do anyway and hope I have the courage you have when the chips are finally down. God bless you, Bill.

  8. The new version of Psalm 23: The State is my Sheppard I shall not want. You l lead me to give up my inhibitions. Thy bread and thy circuses they comfort me.

    Can you imagine what would have happened if this generation had been fighting Hitler and Tojo???

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