The Natives are getting Restless.
By ‘Natives’ I mean those who are True Americans, who Instinctively Rebel at governmental Interference in their lives, not the Sheeple who have Abandoned their Duties and Responsibilities as citizens of a Constitutional Republic. The latter are happy to leave important decision-making to Elected Officials [who they may have voted for, if they could tear themselves away from their Luxuries] and Bureaucrats.
The former, for a good chunk of them, have been so Damaged by Leftist Thinking that they feel Helpless.
It is the more Vibrant of the former that are starting to rise-up against the Authoritarian measures that have been, and will continue to be, put in place by governments at all levels.
Many of the Damaged former and the Feckless latter are giving-in to Panic and Hysteria. As I described this consition in my last post, #WUHAN Wig-Out – Hysteria Pandemic:
Panic and Hysteria often do not occur suddenly.
They often build slowly, starting as faint murmurs in the Soul — in the gut — that grows louder and more Frenzied as they are fed by both outside sources and from one’s own Nature.
It’s very easy to get caught-up in them if you do not use the Right Reason in your brain to Suppress them. This type of Reason must always be employed in such situations because we Naturally possess a Flight Response, as it were, as a form of Protection. It is an Instinct that, especially in this situation, must be overcome or our Society will Degenerate…and we will become more open to the White Knight on the Leftist Horse.
However and finally, we are seeing people publically questioning the Restrictive Measures that have been taken.
One of the more Vibrant among us is Auguste Meyrat, who has written a fine piece over at American Greatness on this matter.
Some highlights…
By now, the Wuhan virus has hit home for everyone. Stores ransacked; schools closed; all large gatherings and events canceled; long-distance travel prohibited; pork-filled stimulus bills written and debated; some major cities enforcing mandatory quarantines. People everywhere now remain anxious in their homes and plan to stay there for at least another month, rationing precious toilet paper and keeping updated on the situation.
While the experts claim that little is known about the Wuhan virus, enough is known to suggest that the response has been excessive. While there is a worrying possibility that the Wuhan virus will make a sizable impact on public health (along with the possibility that it probably won’t), the hype surrounding it has already created a huge imposition on daily life and cost the global economy trillions of dollars. Everyone must “do their part” to confront the pandemic or face the wrath of their conscientious peers.
The word ‘conscientious’ should be put in quotes. You cannot be labeled with that word unless what you are is truly, actually Principled and not the acting in a Pavlovian Response to a chance to engage in Virtue Signalling. For that is what this is for many, many of your peers: a chance to be seen putting stuffed animals and candles and notes and other trinkets at a deadly crash or shooting site on a much grander scale.
Combined with Panic and Hysteria, this Vile Virtue Signalling is Pathetic and will not help the Community.
Instead: it will make you more Compliant to having the jackboot stomping your face.
Mr. Meyrat sees these present reactions as part of a long train of giving in to one’s Fears and Ignoring Right Reason:
This kind of hype and the subsequent reaction to it seems to grow worse with each year. Right before the Wuhan virus, there was President Trump’s “historic” impeachment. And before that, there was the death of General Qasem Soleimani and the possibility of World War III. And before that, in no particular order, there was the imminent climate catastrophe, Russian collusion and the Mueller report, the Amazon rainforest burning down, and periodic nuclear threats from North Korea.
People should know better by now, yet they seem to fall for the hype every time — including many conservatives. The promise of the tech age and the ubiquity of smartphones and the internet was that it would arm people with relevant information and rational courses of action. Rather, it has done the opposite — magnifying doubts and fears about everything and everyone.
In most cases, the only thing that information technology has done is cause people to become less tethered to reality. Screens now replace people’s senses, and the algorithms embedded in social media do people’s thinking for them.
As such, most people spend more time in the virtual world and less time in the real one, making them ever more vulnerable to exaggerated doomsday narratives. In particular, this retreat from reality takes a toll on a person’s memory, imagination, and common sense.
Quite.
I can feel The Fear in The Western World — a Self-Generated Fear, based on Pure Emotion, covered in a thin and crackable layer of Social Respectability.
I can also feel the drooling of those with The Totalitarian Impulse, smacking their Bile-coated lips in Anticipation.
More from AM:
This then leads to a lack of context. Everything seems new and unprecedented, and therefore unknown and scary—except that this isn’t true. Pandemics have always existed, and there are proven ways to deal with them that don’t involve shutting down the economy and putting everyone under house arrest.
There are so many people running around in an Internal Frenzy shouting ‘The sky is FALLING!’ that, if we Americans do not pull ourselves together, we will find that we’ve Lost much more than we think.
Mr. Meyrat:
…for those who claim that enduring inconveniences for the sake of saving lives is worth it, the current lockdown is not a mere inconvenience. It is a profound disruption that has already uprooted many people’s lives. Small businesses are closing; people are losing jobs or seeing their hours cut, schools everywhere are canceled for the next month; universities have let out two months early; countless employees need to work from home while watching their children; hospitals are overrun; families are rationing necessities; and churches won’t even be able to hold services for Easter. A nationwide shutdown to wait out the virus is simply not worth all of this.
As I keep saying: There is a Price To Pay for living in a Constitutional Republic. And one Price is Living At Risk to Preserve Freedom, Ordered Liberty, and Property — to Resist the Totalitarian Impulse.
The passage of Obamacare was a Savage knife to the Heart of The Republic. Will we allow The Constitution to have it’s flesh Desecrated, as well?
I know not what course others may take, but as for me:
I will not be a slave; I will either Live Free Or Die.
OUTLAW.
