covid-19

Welcome to the Ontario police state, in the era of covid-1984

April 17, 2021 Incoherent ramblings , , , , , , , , , ,

Our morbidly obese Ontario premier seems to be attempting to protect himself by instituting another phase of lockdowns and by granting additional police powers.  People can build their immune systems with exercise and fresh air, but he is probably so obese that the cardio that he would require to reduce his weight would give him a heart attack.  So, like a petulant and vindictive abused child bully, if he can’t do it, you are not allowed to either.  Gyms are now shut down for the second year of “two weeks to flatten the curve.”  Somebody who can’t exercise doesn’t care if he is inhibiting the ability of others to do so, regardless of the mental and physical health benefits of doing so, or to the livelihoods of those employed by or dependent on those gyms.

At the beginning of the covid scare, we had no idea what was going on.  We now know a great deal.  Among all the things that we now know, are the particular facts that obesity and vitamin D deficiencies are key risk factors, and that most transmission appears to be in indoor environments.  Our bodies utilize exposure to sunlight to manufacture vitamin D, so being incarcerated indoors puts us at risk.  Getting outdoors for exercise is probably the single biggest thing that we can do to keep ourselves safe, yet Ontario police have now been granted the power to stop people on the streets, demand to know their identity, their address, and their purpose of travel.  This is clearly not something that has been imposed to encourage people to get out for exercise, sunlight and fresh air.  I stopped paying attention to the so-called regulations that are being imposed\({}^1\), so I do not know the full extent of the rules that I am supposed to be complying with.  If I were out on a bike ride by myself or with my wife, who I share a space with anyways, would I have to justify that to the police?  Do I face fines or jail for attempting to keep myself healthy and safe (not just from covid, but many other conditions that are enhanced by inactivity)?

Thankfully, it appears that there is some push back to the new dictatorial measures, and a number of police forces have stated that they will not enforce their new inquisitional power to stop people on the streets nor in their cars.  I’m not optimistic that the Toronto police will take this position, as a force that large is statistically more likely to abuse power.

When I am out of the house these days, it is usually because I am getting groceries, running errands, or walking my beast of a dog.  I can’t help wondering how I would respond if I were to get stopped by the police for any of these.  If the fear porn was truly justified, then those police officers are putting themselves in danger by approaching potential disease carriers.  How do they feel about that?  Would I be brave enough to attempt to politely ask that off the record?  Does an officer making such a stop not cringe internally against the stupidity of what they are being made to do?  I am not optimistic that would be the case.  Police depend on their jobs and paycheques, and part of their paycheque means that they have to enforce the laws, regardless of their opinion about them, and then have to justify those actions so that they can live with themselves.  There is the open question about whether these executive decrees are truly lawful, but if the police believe they are, these mandates will be enforced until challenged in the courts.  There may not be much internal Police dissent, and if there is, it is probably on the down-low, quiet, and off the record.  Is there much chance that the police who have been enforcing the “Now you do what they told ya” mandates, will end up collectively fighting back in a screaming “FUCK YOU, I WON’T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME” crescendo that pulls the power out from under the slovenly dictator who has assumed control of the province?  I doubt it, but I can hope.

Footnotes:

  1. Because there are so many signs about it, I know that I can be fined or jailed for not wearing a mask when shopping indoors.

Lockdowns are starving kids to death

October 20, 2020 Incoherent ramblings , , , , ,

It’s been clear since our petty dictators started imposing COVID lockdowns that these are actions that disproportionately target the poor. I’d been thinking of that in terms of people in the city, waiters, cooks, theater and gym staff, …, who have lost their jobs, will lose their homes, and will rack up debt.  However, this is much more than a first world problem.  There is real cost to blind fear.

Initially we saw many virtue signalling rich celebrities blindly parrot “stay at home” while their personal shoppers and cooks procured their needs.  Later the peons got into the act and made themselves feel good by spouting meaningless catch phrases like  “flatten the curve”, “exponential growth”, “stay safe”, “stay apart”, and “follow the science” (the irony of this last one is amazing!).  Somehow, this was all exploited by media and power hungry politicians to mobilize enough fear that people clamored to have their freedoms taken away, creating illusions of safety.  I  don’t really understand how the COVID fear porn has reached these comprehension defying levels.  The media and politicians who have been pumping the mindless fear really need to step back and take ownership for the chaos, death and misery that will result from their actions.

For months, there have been WHO projections of millions who will die of starvation in developing countries as side effects of lockdown policies.  I had naively envisioned that this would be economic fallout, believing that developing countries would not be foolhardy enough to attempt to replicate the rich country lockdown strategies.  As it turns out, stupidity is more contagious than I imagined it would be, and there are poor countries that have imposed lockdowns on their people, despite the fact that their people have much bigger dangers to battle in their day to day lives.

For a taste of this chaos, check out this Tom Woods episode with Gret Glyer, the founder of DonorSee.  The episode talks about lockdowns in Africa that are killing more kids than COVID, and lockdowns in Sierra-Leone that are so severe that kids are not being allowed to get food available across the street.  Crossing the street was prohibited since it would have required them to cross an imaginary line drawn by an idiot bureaucrat. Seeing the images of the skeletal Sierra-Leone kids is heartbreaking.  Gret predicts that despite continual decreases in child mortality over the last 30 years, there will be a massive spike in excess child mortality in 2020. This spike isn’t going to be due to COVID, but because of fear based political responses that are starving kids to death!

Future generations will look back at the pathetic people of 2020, and shake their heads at how uninformed fear and group-think lead to so much death worldwide.  The death that are being focused on are the deaths of those over 80 years old, labelled “covid deaths”.  These are people that generally have multiple pre-existing conditions that were the root cause of the death, with coronaviruses possibly pushing them over the top (and getting the blame.)  Some of those deaths may have been accelerated by COVID, but were likely not preventable.  What could be prevented are all the surplus deaths due to the evil lockdown policies themselves (these deaths in developing countries, deaths by suicide and drug and alcohol abuse in response to financial ruin and demoralization, …).  Children, statistically speaking, are not dying of COVID, but they are being killed by the lockdowns.

It is, incidentally, confusing and heart breaking to be glad that my mother and my mother in law passed away in 2019, and did not live long enough to die this year.  In order to “save grandma” we are consigning family members that are at the end of their lives to die in misery isolated from their families.

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