Category Archives: Covid

‘Nudge’ has no place in our democracy

Rampant fear-mongering was intentional, admits one of the co-founders of the Behavioural Insights Team

Frank Furedi comments in spiked-online.com:

Behavioural science, aka ‘nudging’, has been used by the government during the pandemic to scare people into doing the ‘right’ thing. This insidious development has even been acknowledged by Simon Ruda, one of the co-founders of the Behavioural Insights Team, aka the Nudge Unit, which is part-owned by the UK government. He wrote that the ‘most egregious and far-reaching mistake made in responding to the pandemic has been the level of fear willingly conveyed [to] the public’.

He continues:

And here we come to the principal problem – namely, that nudging is fundamentally anti-democratic. Behavioural scientists start from the assumption that human beings cannot be trusted to make rational choices. People’s behaviour, they conclude, should be the subject of government management. They treat people’s emotional lives, lifestyles and relationships as legitimate objects of policymaking and professional intervention.

After Covid

We won’t get normality back without a fight

Over at Spiked-online, Brendan O’Neill observes and comments on the rather sudden change in tune in the official and mainstream commentariat regarding all things Covid. He writes:

“Suddenly, everyone’s talking about getting back to normal. After 22 months of restrictions, of going in and out of lockdown, of a suspension of civil liberties that was unprecedented in modern peacetime Britain, all the talk is of ‘moving on’. Let’s learn to live with Covid, politicians say.”

He rightly says that “moving on” won’t be easy.

“As sociologist and SAGE adviser Robert Dingwall said back in May 2020, officialdom ‘effectively terrorised’ the public into believing Covid would kill them if they broke the rules. We created a ‘climate of fear’, he said. The consequence of terrorising the public, rather than galvanising us to pull together to combat the spread of Covid and assist the vulnerable, became clear very early on. Snitching abounded. Neighbours told on neighbours. Venturing outside came to be viewed as dangerous anti-social behaviour. Police forces went wild, clearing people out of parks for no good reason and even sending drones to spy on dog-walkers in scenic country spots. The culture of atomisation that predated Covid was intensified by the terror officialdom deployed in response to Covid. Repairing solidarity will be a tough task.”

“And what about the culture of freedom? Forget, for a moment, the way our legally guaranteed liberties were put on ice during this crisis. That was bad, no question. But a more injurious if sometimes intangible process was taking place alongside this temporary unwinding of our rights. The culture of freedom was undermined. The individual self-confidence and social trust that freedom depends upon, which freedom cannot exist without, was pummelled, day in, day out. We were educated to distrust others, to distrust ourselves.”

His conclusion:

“We hear a lot about ‘Covid denialism’, about those who deny the scientific reality of Covid-19’s impact on human health. Those people are certainly worth challenging. But I would venture that there is a worse problem – cultural denialism; the blinkered belief that lockdown was a simple and straightforward measure to deal with a health crisis rather than something that was also highly influenced by the cultures of fear, distrust and censorship that sadly define this young century. To my mind, this cultural denialism is worse than scientific denialism because it keeps at bay the political reckoning we will need to have if we are ever to restore the human connections and individual self-belief that are necessary to a good society. For nearly two years we’ve been told that protecting health is the highest aim of human society. We now need to make a very different case – that it is freedom that makes life worth living, and that everything should be bent towards making freedom a reality for all people. Let’s fight for that normality.”

Stigmatisation and dehumanisation of the unvaccinated

The world has indeed been hypnotized into a state of mass psychosis, says Belgian psychologist Mattias Desmet

“You know you’ve entered a twilight zone of insanity when a police officer tells you you’re a criminal simply because you’re unvaccinated. That’s exactly what happened the other day in Germany. The police officer insisted the unvaccinated man was “a murderer” because he “might infect someone,” and that he’s “not a human.””

Continue reading (and watch the embedded films) here.

Mass Formation Psychosis

The inventor of the mRNA vaccine technology on the state of the world

One of the most trustworthy people in the whole pandemic must be Robert W. Malone MD. He is no-one less than the inventor of the mRNA vaccine technology.

However, he has fallen out of favour with the powers that be, because he has, as Monica Showalter puts it in a recent article on “American Thinker”,

pointed out that many of the more insane and counterproductive public health measures going around have been brought on by conflicts of interest and a revolving door between medical researchers, Big Pharma, and public health officials. Profit motives are quite operative.

For that sin, he has now been banned on Twitter, and searches for him on Google are biased against him.

On his own website, Malone prominently states:

As the original “inventor” of mRNA and DNA vaccines … I am concerned about how the technology is being developed and implemented.

And now, someone has compiled a very effective video of a talk he recently gave on where Malone thinks the world is heading. In short, the world is in what he calls a “mass formation psychosis”. It’s a bit frightening, but, as he points out, not all is lost.

Rendering to Caesar what is God’s

The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Manchester

Justin Welby, the current Archbishop of Canterbury and thus the leader of the world-wide Anglican community, has said that “turning down the jab [anti-covid vaccine] violates the principle of “loving thy neighbour””.

No hint of a sense of 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20, which goes like this:

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.

Regarding the Archbishop’s pronouncement, Breitbart Europe reports:

Responding to the pronouncement, Church of England curate Jamie Franklin told Breitbart London: “I think the archbishop’s comments betray a total lack of understanding of the objections to the COVID-19 vaccine which include safety concerns, concerns about the use of aborted foetal tissue in the development of said vaccines, and concerns about the use of coercion, scapegoating and persecution of those who are deemed to be non-compliant.

“The archbishop also appears completely unconcerned about the emergence of a biosecurity state in which the government has arrogated to itself the power to mandate medical treatments for its citizens, thereby fundamentally altering the nature of the relationship between the individual and the state,” Franklin added.

The Church of England curate, who hosts the Irreverend podcast, went on to say: “Many people are finding it more and more difficult to believe in the narrative pedalled by the government and corporate media and are wondering what on earth is going on.

“The archbishop’s comment do not address any of these concerns and his repeated use of the phrase love your neighbour’ is a misnomer in this context.”

Here is a study from 30th April 2021 showing that there are “breakthrough cases”. That the vaccine does not protect against infection or transmission. The ABC should have known this by December, and probably did.

The other leading churchman who recently got Christian faith disastrously wrong is David Walker, the Bishop of Manchester. On “Thought for the Day” today on the BBC Radio 4 Today program, he said that he had cancelled a number of Christmas events (I paraphrase from memory) “not to protect the attendees, who would have been healthy and strong, but someone who wouldn’t have attended, living far away, maybe on the other side of the world.”

Let me translate this: “In order to stop dying, we must stop living.”

It sounds to me very much like the promise of the serpent in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:4): “You will not certainly die . . . you will be like God.”

Two men who found faith in the pandemic

They saw the evil in the response, and thus turned to God

Two recent podcasts show that we are living in a time of revelation. In these two (unrelated) podcasts, we meet two men of relatively high standing, highly educated and intelligent. One is a journalist called James Delingpole, the other a professor of propaganda studies and media studies at New York University, called Mark Crispin Miller.

In a podcast with Church of England curate (the “Irreverend“) Jamie Franklin, James Delingpole confesses that, during the pandemic, Jamie led James to God. (Listen here, start at 30 minutes in.)

In a podcast with the American historian Tom Woods, professor Miller also confesses that he has come to faith, and specifically says that this was due to what he saw as the evil behind much of the measures against an objectively not very dangerous virus. At about 40 percent in (I can’t see the exact times, sorry), Miller says (my transcription): “This dystopian experience has really moved me spiritually, and I’m not the only person who once identified as leftist who feels this way now. I believe we’re all experiencing . . . we’re all but coming face to face with evil. I think this is a profoundly evil project. I think this is a eugenicist project. I think its authors are after absolute and permanent control and a radically reduced world population.”

“Pathologized Totalitarianism 101”

A good summary of what is going on in the world around Covid

“So, GloboCap has crossed the Rubicon. The final phase of its transformation of society into a pathologized-totalitarian dystopia, where mandatory genetic-therapy injections and digital compliance papers are commonplace, is now officially underway.”

Continue reading here.

The Tower of Babel and the Remnant

An update on the spiritual battle we are currently in

Two articles on lewrockwell.com today, highlighting two aspects of current spiritual reality in the world.

One of them, “A comment on comments” by Bionic Mosquito, says that Christians need to urgently set priorities and put their theological differences to one side:

I am sitting on a few comments to the recent posts that focus on the coming apart of Christendom, and am not sure I will post these.  I am finding these destructive, not constructive.  I do not like the mudslinging between traditions.

We need to concentrate now on the common enemy, for

. . . the world is coming apart, and our liberties are being crushed – and this has accelerated in the last twenty months.  Only one institution can turn this tide [he means the universal Christian Church], and the vast majority of the official representatives of this institution have failed completely – if not, in fact, are in service to the enemy.

There is a remnant, to be found out of each tradition, that sees and understands this.  The battle this remnant faces is captured in Ephesians 6:12, and I have best described it here.

In other words: We, the Remnant, need to hold together, whatever our other differences, in the face of the rising chaos instigated by the spiritual enemy.

The other, “Have we finally reached peak Davos?“, by Thomas Luongo, appears to see some light at the end of the chaos tunnel we are currently in, even though he makes it clear that he thinks the chaos will first deepen before things get better.

He writes:

So, let’s start with the obvious. Places like Austria, Australia, and even Italy will not go along with [tyrannical Covid measures such as a vaccine mandate]. The sizes of the protests grow daily and as the desperation on both sides grows any further attempts at control will be met with violence, regrettably. 

He thinks that the current attempt to create a “New World Order”, to unite the world under one government ruling a population cowed by the fear of death to follow the orders of a supposedly benevolent elite, is finally cracking:

Have we reached Peak Davos? I think we have but that doesn’t mean things get better from here, only that this is as much pressure as they can bring to bear and it will either work or it will be clear that it will fail, albeit very messily.

In this context, it is worth quoting Ephesians 6:12 here:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

“Do I Believe in God, COVID Totalitarianism & the Climate”

Dave Rubin speaks with Jordan Peterson about these issues

For simplicity’s sake, I will today just quote from the text below the video, because it covers all the essentials. It’s probably the best exposition of Jordan Peterson’s views we will get in just one hour, and I’ve seen a lot of videos with and about him. It was posted on YouTube on 14th November 2021.

Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report talks to Dr. Jordan Peterson, author of 12 Rules for Life and Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, about what is actually informing COVID restrictions, the real choice that faces the clean energy COP26 crowd, and his response when he is asked about the existence of God.

First, Jordan discusses why we chose medical tyranny and a totalitarian state as a response to the COVID epidemic. He shares how the politics of fear, more than science, has been informing COVID policy in Canada in the U.S. Jordan also tries to understand how the left, who usually hates big corporations, has handed over it’s trust to big pharma.

Next, Jordan discusses the COP26 summit and the horrible position liberals and environmentalists have put themselves in by pushing for more expensive renewable energy while claiming to care for the poor. He explains why their more expensive energy plans will cause electricity prices to skyrocket, hurting those most vulnerable. He suggests we follow China’s lead and invest in nuclear power to create as much cheap energy as possible which can mitigate the effects of climate change without sacrificing the poor. He explains the problems of sustainable development and why you should dismiss anyone who advocates for Net Zero.

Finally, Jordan discusses what religion and spirituality mean to him. He shares the answer he gives when asked “does god exist?” He also explains why people like Sam Harris may not be as atheist as they may think they are. He also explains why science fails as a religion and what religious thoughts really are.

I will just add that Peterson announces that he is going to the UK soon, to speak in Cambridge and Oxford, with, among others, Richard Dawkins. That’s something to look forward to.