It is frightening how ordinary citizens are being treated by the authorities:
By now we should all be quite shocked and disturbed by the heavy-handed responses of most governments to the covid virus. Lockdowns, border closures, and alarming restrictions of freedoms and basic human rights have become the order of the day in far too many places.
And we have seen far too many images of police hassling lone sun bathers on deserted beaches, arresting Christian pastors at their churches, and even handcuffing and taking away pregnant mothers, all for daring to stand up for essential liberties and democratic rights.
There seems to be an endless supply of such horror stories. Thankfully a number of them have been captured on film. Thankfully some concerned citizens have videoed these alarming incidents, and the whole world can see just what is happening in once free and democratic nations.
Australia has had its fair share of these totally unacceptable incidents. While most police are doing a great job, too many have become little more than thugs as they treat innocent civilians as axe murderers and worse. We expect such police state behaviours in, well, police states! We do not expect this in countries like Australia.
One of the most recent – and most shocking – examples of this comes from Sydney. One news report begins this way:
A 12-year-old girl was allegedly pepper sprayed in front of shocked onlookers as her sister was arrested for refusing to wear a face mask during Sydney’s Covid lockdown. Distressing footage of the melee was shared online overnight after the girl’s family threatened to sue the officers involved for ‘assaulting and harassing a child’. New South Wales Police confirmed two women, aged 20 and 37, were arrested during the altercation on July 2 and charged with assaulting officers and breaching Covid orders. They did not comment on the allegations that a child was hurt in the process of the arrests. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9755781/Covid-Western-Sydney-girl-12-pepper-sprayed-police-arrest-family-failing-wear-mask.html
Sadly there are plenty of other recent cases like this. Consider another one, from the Northern Territory. The story goes like this:
Hayden Williams was walking to his car in Alice Springs on Friday when police confronted him about not wearing a mask while drinking a coffee. A baffled Mr Williams tried to explain that he was drinking, making it impossible to wear a mask. Police refused his reason and demanded he wears a mask while drinking anyways. The officer who declined to give her name and badge number explained to Mr Williams that “Alice Springs is a vulnerable community with a lot of sick people”.
There has not been a single recorded case of locally transmitted Coronavirus in the remote town, ever. Mr Williams then continued to walk back to his car when the three officers knocked his coffee to the ground and arrested him for failing to wear a mask. He was taken to the local watchhouse and released twenty minutes later with a $5,056 fine. https://www.rebelnews.com/man_arrested_and_fined_5k_for_drinking_coffee_without_mask
Wow. That is simply madness – tyrannical madness! And there seems to be no ends to such shocking videos. Consider just one more from Australia from a few days ago. The story opens:
“The owners of an organic food store in the NSW Southern Highlands have clashed with police over their anti-masker views. The duo work at the Organic Food Store in Bowral and have been quite vocal on social media about their views against mask-wearing and vaccines.” https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/dramatic-footage-captures-moment-police-clash-with-organic-food-store-owners-over-anti-masker-views-c-3286150
One more story, from Newcastle, begins this way:
On Tuesday, Nic, a young mother from Newcastle, NSW, was confronted by police for not wearing a mask on a train. Nic suffers from asthma and is legally exempt from the mask mandate. However, when she informed the officers about her exemption, they refused to respect it. They immediately became hostile and told her she would no longer be allowed to continue her travels on public transport. Nic captured the entire encounter on her camera. https://www.rebelnews.com/nsw_police_violently_steal_woman_s_bag_for_having_lawful_mask_exemption
Do masks even work against the virus?
Most rational folks viewing these videos – and there are so many more we could highlight – would rightly wonder if we are now living in Communist China, or North Korea, or the former Soviet Union. And we do not just have the very worrying reality of countless people being hounded and arrested by the authorities for daring to not wear a mask.
We also have this: the important question arises, are masks in fact of any real use when dealing with the Rona? Many medical and scientific experts say no. Consider what the experts are saying on the efficacy of masks and the virus. Melbourne anaesthetist Dr Babak Amin for example has strong views on face masks. As one report states:
Anaesthetist Dr Babak Amin says the Andrews governments’ mask mandate is another “dreamt up” draconian measure because it does not refer exclusively to surgical masks but rather masks with no universal standard of manufacture. “There is a raft of high-quality data, what we call meta-analyses, studies that compile multiple other studies together, and these studies have found that non-medical masks in community settings play no role in protecting the wearer from infection.” Mr Jones pointed to a study from Dr James Meehan of Global Research which argues bacterial pneumonias are currently on the rise because “untrained members of the public are wearing medical masks repeatedly … in a non-sterile fashion” https://m.facebook.com/PeopleOfVic/videos/981872685642603/
Another look at the available data begins this way:
In this meta-analysis, face masks were found to have no detectable effect against transmission of viral infections. It found: “Compared to no masks, there was no reduction of influenza-like illness cases or influenza for masks in the general population, nor in healthcare workers.”
This 2020 meta-analysis found that evidence from randomized controlled trials of face masks did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza, either when worn by infected persons (source control) or by persons in the general community to reduce their susceptibility.
Another recent review found that masks had no effect specifically against Covid-19, although facemask use seemed linked to, in 3 of 31 studies, “very slightly reduced” odds of developing influenza-like illness.
This 2019 study of 2862 participants showed that both N95 respirators and surgical masks “resulted in no significant difference in the incidence of laboratory confirmed influenza.”
This 2016 meta-analysis found that both randomized controlled trials and observational studies of N95 respirators and surgical masks used by healthcare workers did not show benefit against transmission of acute respiratory infections. It was also found that acute respiratory infection transmission “may have occurred via contamination of provided respiratory protective equipment during storage and reuse of masks and respirators throughout the workday.” https://worldhealth.net/news/masks-are-neither-effective-nor-safe-summary-science/
The so-called health experts who are advising our governments have been all over the place on the role of masks and the Rona. They seem to change their tune on a regular basis. They not only contradict others, but they often contradict themselves. As but one example, after looking at the many flip-flops and contradictions of Dr Fauci in America, one US report concludes this way:
“Emotion and politics—not science and common sense—were clearly driving the nationwide push for mandatory mask-wearing, and even Fauci succumbed to it. Now, though, science is starting to prove that masks did nothing more than make the public feel a little better.” https://www.maciverinstitute.com/2021/06/can-we-finally-admit-that-mask-wearing-was-pointless/
Plenty of sensible voices have been sounding the alarm on all this. One who has been a voice of reason for the past year and a half is Australian commentator Alan Jones. He has been consistently and courageously speaking out on the panic porn, Covid alarmism, health fascism, and tinpot dictatorships.
One older and brief video that he did on all this is representative of his many calls to stop the madness and the tyranny: https://www.zadelpropertyeducation.com.au/alan-jones-on-face-masks/
Another – and much newer – short video by Jones on masks in particular and draconian lockdowns in general is found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgeNxqgKxfc
You can see him weeknights on Sky News speaking truth in an age starved of truth, fed on lies and panic, and paralysed by fear. I suggest you tune in on a regular basis. We certainly need such realism in the face of such reckless hysteria and Big Brother overreach.
Enough is enough.
[1356 words]
[1272 words]