Angelo Codevila: The Covid Coup

Panicked by fears manufactured by the ruling class, the American people assented to being put essentially under house arrest until further notice, effectively suspending the habits, preferences, and liberties that had defined our way of life. Most Americans have suffered economic damage. Many who do not enjoy protected status have had careers ended and been reduced to penury. Social strains and suicides multiplied. Forcibly deferring all manner of medical care is sure to impose needless suffering and death. In sum, the lockdowns’ medical and economic dysfunctions make for multiples of the deaths and miseries of the COVID-19 virus itself.

Are there any categories of people who benefited from the shutdowns? Government gained. We know of no employee of federal, state or local government who was furloughed or had his or her pay reduced. On the contrary, all got additional power. The federal government created trillions of dollars, the distribution of which is enriching the usual suspects involved in administration. The teachers’ unions gained the power to extort concessions as a price for reopening schools.

Bad judgments and usurpations—the scam, not the germs—define this disaster’s dimensions. The COVID-19’s devastating effect on the U.S. body politic is analogous to what diseases do to persons whom age (senectus ipsa est morbus) and various debilities and corruptions had already placed on death’s slippery slope.

And as independent businesses were throttled, big ones grew. The biggest, Amazon, was the biggest winner.

Outside of the few who have gained (and are still gaining) power and wealth from the panic, Americans are asking what it will take to end this outrage—not to modify it with any “new normal” decided by who knows whom, on who knows what authority. Since no one in authority is leading those who want to end it, Americans also wonder who may lead that cause. What follows suggests answers.

Prohibitions such as of playing in the park or swimming in the sea are mere devices to train the public to accept unlimited bureaucratic discretion. You may congregate at Costco, but not at church. Failure to obey regulations will land ordinary citizens in jail, while the jails release robbers and child molesters. You may not exceed limits on occupancy or fail to wear a mask. You may not even sing in church. But if you and friends loot and burn the neighborhood store, the police will just stand by. Yet all Democrat governors celebrated and some joined masses of “protests”—forget about masks and social distancing. They did this not for anybody’s health but to to secure another few percentage points of the black vote for their party and to leverage their seizure of power over police forces.

What history will record as the great COVID scam of 2020 is based on 1) a set of untruths and baseless assertions—often outright lies—about the novel coronavirus and its effects; 2) the production and maintenance of physical fear through a near-monopoly of communications to forestall challenges to the U.S.. ruling class, led by the Democratic Party, 3) defaulted opposition on the part of most Republicans, thus confirming their status as the ruling class’s junior partner. No default has been greater than that of America’s Christian churches—supposedly society’s guardians of truth.

We are supposed to believe that all this is dictated by “Science.” In June, 1,200 “health experts” signed a letter approving the BLM protests because, it said, “white supremacy is a lethal public health issue.” But it cautioned that “this should not be confused with a permissive stance on…protests against stay-home orders.” In short, Coronavirus restrictions, like the rest of political correctness’s commandments, are pure political weaponry—nothing short of an inversion of the American people’s priorities, accomplished by nobody’s vote. Ruling class presumption. In short, we are living through a coup d’état.

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Related:

Real Clear Politics: The Myth That Lockdowns Stop Pandemics

Station Gossip: Sweden’s Top Epidemiologist: ‘We See No Point In Wearing Masks’

Hide Out Now: CDC Director Reveals 'Substantial' Cost of Closed Schools as Suicides Eclipse COVID Deaths

Mises Institute: From Lockdowns to "The Great Reset"

Zero Hedge: The Great COVID-Con: Exposing Journalistic Malpractice

Zero Hedge: Protesting Germans Revolt Against 'Muzzle' Facemasks And Pandemic Restrictions

"Our demand is to go back to democracy. Away with these laws that have been imposed on us, away with the masks that make us slave," said one woman, according to the BBC.

Daily Mail: Police condemn Boris's order to enforce mask and social distancing rules and call it an' impossible' task

Off Guardian: 
Crossing the Rubicon: The UK Slips into a Repressive State

Real Clear Politics:
Politics, Not Science, Keeping Schools Closed

Off Guardian: “Honey, I Shrunk the People’s Constitutional Rights!”How Public-Health Officials and Other Administrators Got So Much Power

Barry Norris:
The Biggest Fraud Ever, Part 1: The Hocus "Science" Behind Lockdowns

Breitbart:
Dutch Government Won’t Use Mask Mandate; ‘No Proven Effectiveness’