The Covid Crisis Has Not Been Wasted

…But the ability of humans to self-organize into voluntary communities has been destroyed by the burgeoning state. Humanity has had its ups and downs and these have been documented to some extent. Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man (1871) and Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man (1973, initially a TV mini-series, eventually a book version) come to mind. Each was pertinent to its times. Is there, then, a book which should be written relevant to today? Well, first off, the language would have to change. Reference to “Man” is definitely out; it is deemed to be sexist. However, “man” or even “humans” are no longer the centerpiece; the state is.

Thus, the question arises whether or not human beings, as individuals, are any longer relevant, given the startling growth of state power as a result of the virus. Milton Friedman once said that the state “would first take away your rights through claims of preserving your health”. How prophetic. Following the big bang, space, the medium in which all matter exists, was said to inflate. I thus propose The Tech State Totally Inflates (using the jargon of the day) , as the logical follow-on to the books Descent and Ascent .

In former President Obama’s opinion, “government is the only thing we do together”. Well, that may be a progressive’s vision of utopia, but that has not been the case for the recorded history of humanity. Voluntary association into communities has been the human condition for all time and amplified the power of the individual enormously, through an open exchange of ideas, cooperation and competition among groups. The state was a late arrival and its effects - especially considering the mass killing of the 20th century - have been a mixed blessing.

Those who have thought about the relationship between the individual and the state have been aware of the natural tension between individual prerogatives and state power, ever since the state (usually monarchy early on) came into existence. The nominally democratic state’s power had been expanding, even in the US, especially since the progressive era began in the early 20th century. Cynicism came out into the open with slogans like “Never let a crisis go to waste”. Few understood how malevolent was this tactic and now it is in full blossom for all to see with Covid.

It has become clear that whatever resistance there was to expansion of state power at the expense of individual rights has crumbled with the advent of this disease. Hasty commands - a few legislative but mostly executive orders by fiat, as to most areas of life, have been put into effect, mostly with limited and/or inaccurate information. What is most glaring, however, is the extent to which the information necessary for exercise of moral agency by individuals has been manipulated by a a new combination of powers, which can only be described as fascist. It is a new-and-improved brand of fascism, but fascism, nonetheless.

I refer to the obvious combination of the state, Big Tech, big business and the so-called “mainstream media”(MSM). The degree of unity among these entities in the propaganda emitted and the data and information withheld is stunning and unprecedented. Never before did the US have a state media. It surely does now and it puts the erstwhile Pravda (or Goebbels) to shame. There was a time not long ago when various points of view on many issues were widely available and could be considered by large numbers of people in a polity. This provided an opportunity for political balance which is essential for a real democracy. Those days are gone and may - due to the evolution of the internet into a hierarchy in the hands of an oligopoly - never return. Acquisition of power by the state is rarely, if ever, reversed.

In addition, so-called “social media” have piled on in the realms of propaganda and information/opinion suppression. This massively distorts reality and minimized the possibility for a genuine exchange of ideas. Only one idea is allowed when it comes to Covid and when it comes to societal - especially racial - reality and now, even when it comes to governance itself.

The days of real democracy in the US are over, and about half the population can no longer trust the result of so-called elections. That is because the cities of the former US have declared themselves to be lawless zones where the rule of law no longer exists, where might makes right. In the context of anarchy, what reasonable person would expect that the lawlessness announced daily by big city district attorneys would not extend to voting/electoral fraud? We learned that those in power would brook no discussion whatsoever of this topic - when a handful of cities with a total of less that 50,000 votes, determined the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and when Mark Zuckerberg contributed nearly half a billion dollars to those very precincts leading up to the election.

This is the end game of statism: to create a self-perpetuating power structure with the mere appearance of democratic processes. It has largely succeeded, with the help of the Covid “crisis”.

6 Likes

Don’t be too despondent about this. Yes, the individuals in control (remember, there is no state, only people giving orders which are obeyed) rarely give up any of their power voluntarily. But power ultimately is always taken from their fingers, often their cold dead fingers.

History tells us that no political structure lasts forever – none! Time after time, societies and civilizations have risen, prospered, and collapsed – every single one! The Democrats who abuse the US today and the Lefties who are running Europe into the ground will inevitably meet the same fate.

The good news is that the trend line of human progress remains upwards – despite the massive painful fluctuations around the trend. As has often been pointed out, more human beings were living longer better healthier lives at the end of the 20th Century than at the beginning, despite the intervening nastiness of two World Wars and a global Great Depression.

On the other hand, the 20th Century saw the end of many states – the Qing dynasty, the Hohenzollerens, the Habsburgs, the Italian Fascists, the German Nazis, the British Empire, the French Empire, the Dutch Empire, East German Communists, Pol Pot’s regime, the Russian Marxists, and many more.

It is not going to be fun getting there, but We the People are going to have the last laugh. History guarantees it!

5 Likes

Perhaps things will reverse, the compass will reset itself. But not in our time, I’m afraid. The America we knew and took for granted and loved in all the well-worn ways is gone forever. I’d be happy to be wrong.

4 Likes