The last couple of weeks have been nuts. We’ve seen authoritarianism rising globally at a rapid clip, using health as the excuse and scaring people into total obedience and isolation. It’s tragic. In New Hampshire and several other states, restaurants and bars have been told they aren’t allowed to serve customers inside their establishments with the exception of take out and delivery. Other businesses are having people work from home and “social distancing” has been put in place as the new normal. In other cases, like California, total lockdowns are now in place. In NH, an “emergency order” was issued by the state governor, Chris Sununu, who – no joke – is actually referred to as “HIS EXCELLENCY” in the order which purportedly bans any gathering of over fifty people. It’s an outrageous order and contrary to a basic right of humans, which is the right to assemble. It’s also a violation of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In order for many humans to be happy, they need to be around other people. We are a social animal. Now the people calling themselves “the state” or “the government” have decided to threaten everyone with violence if they don’t do as they are told and OBEY – for their own good, of course. Normally, libertarians are skeptical of the things they are told by government goons, however we’ve seen yet another schism in the movement in the last few weeks over this Coronavirus scare. Apparently if an authoritarian puts on a lab coat then many libertarians will fall under their spell.
I don’t know if Coronavirus is the threat the government and media are making it out to be. I do know this, however:
1. Politicians and bureaucrats lie. There’s no reason to believe they are telling the truth now. There is a long history of governments manufacturing a crisis and spreading fear in order to attain more power. We saw this in a big way prior to Coronavirus in the hysterical paranoia fostered by the state after 9/11. As a result we saw the rise of “Homeland Security” and the further elimination of freedom. The response to Coronavirus is even worse. In some cases like San Francisco people are under total lockdowns. They also use the term “lockdown” in prison.
2. Media benefits when it propagates fear. “If it bleeds, it leads!” News is a business. They have advertisers, so the more people they can get to tune in, the more valuable the ad space. If people are in a state of fear, they are more likely to hang on through that next commercial break. Plus, mainstream news sources depend on government for its press releases and usually incorporate them, verbatim, into their on-air copy. Though in theory their job is to expose political corruption, if they are too good at this, the state agents will not talk to them any longer and then they won’t get “the scoop”, so any critique of government from mainstream media is usually highly limited.
3. Whenever government takes more freedoms, it doesn’t cede that ground back to liberty after the “crisis” has ended.
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Poster Comment:
Those remarkable Keeniacs. Thanks to tnem the town has vending machines for BTC and another crypto! wikid even recognizes 'em:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keene,_New_Hampshire#Free_Keene