President Joe Biden delivered another one of those COVID-19 speeches Thursday morning. It was the languid Joe today, more reminiscent of a Franklin Roosevelt fireside chat than the absurdly torrid speech he delivered in Atlanta this week that would have made the always bombastic Louisiana Gov. Huey Long appears placid.
Biden may think he’s doing an excellent job at playing the good cop, bad cop routine, but in both roles he not only appears unhinged, but always struggling to grasp the issue at hand. Thursday was no exception.
Biden gently chided the unvaccinated whom he continues to blame for the rising COVID death tolls because “personal choice impacts us all – our hospitals, our country.”
Even though Biden blamed former President Donald Trump for every coronavirus death and even though more have died under Biden’s watch than Trump’s, the current president slovenly evaded any responsibility for the current numbers.
Next, Biden turned to masking and effectively nullified his argument about the efficacy of vaccinations by suggesting we would still be required to wear masks indefinitely. No mention that masks might actually be making people sick by breathing in their own CO2 and recycled germs throughout the day. But some people continue to treat masks like a magic talisman and will even wear them outside jogging, walking or biking in the fresh, uncontaminated air. If that isn’t an example of mass insanity, I don’t know what is. Yesterday, I actually saw a shopper wearing a military gas mask inside a grocery store. We live in a surreal world.
But what was most alarming about Biden’s continued appeal to censor anyone who disagrees with his COVID-19 policy or dares to question how many “booster shots” are going to be necessary until the pandemic is under control. Will the unvaccinated soon be defined as those who have not received their third booster shot?
If we leave it to Biden and the ever complacent mainstream media, we won’t even be allowed to have that debate because the president Thursday again made an appeal for them to just stop allowing any sort of debate to appear because it’s bad.
“I make a special appeal to social media and media outlets: please deal with the misinformation and disinformation … it has to stop.”
Why does it have to stop Joe? Because you say so? And when will your appeal become an executive order issued in the interests of national security or health and safety?
This is what has become so entirely frightening about COVID-19. It has not only kept many of us in masks, it has not only reduced the economy to a wreck in many parts of America, but it continues to erode basic democratic freedoms. And it is terrifying how many people seem to like it that way.
If you think it can’t happen here in America. Just look at what is happening now in other stable and solid democracies around the world.
Australia began as a penal colony for convicted Britons who were sent halfway around the world to consider their crimes on a deserted island in the south Pacific. Despite inheriting the British parliamentary system and developing its own democratic traditions, Australia has become a COVID prison where people are actually escaping from COVID internment camps that closely resemble those constructed by the Germans during the Nazi era.
Just last week, Australia’s Northern Territory announced further measures against the unvaccinated, saying they would only be allowed to leave their homes to buy food or to the hospital for emergency reasons. They won’t be allowed to exit their premises for work or exercise since apparently neither of these activities are considered essential by the state government.
The Australian media has been in lockstep with the government as its political system has become increasingly febrile and is reporting every step towards authoritarianism as a public service announcement.
But if you think Australia is too far away to suitably represent a warning to American democracy, we need look no further to the closest ally – both by geography and by military cooperation – to the United States: Canada.
Yes, Canada has been in the grips of the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau since the twilight years of President Barack Obama but the usually insouciantly authoritarian elitist has essentially transferred the response to COVID-19 to the provinces and allowed them to trample over individual rights.
Quebec has perhaps been the worst violator, where police routinely invade private homes, break up private parties and hand out huge fines for those violating the sacred COVID-19 lockdown rules. The province actually announced a curfew on New Year’s Eve and demanded that everyone return home by 10 p.m.
But, the province’s latest assault on freedom may be game changer and no doubt an eager beaver staffer in the Biden administration who is somewhat cognizant of news outside of the United States is preparing a memo for the president’s desk to recommend that America take note.
Quebec announced a ”health tax” on the unvaccinated this week, effectively further marginalizing those who choose not to take the vaccine as an unwelcome block of citizenry. Will they next be ordered to wear a distinguishing patch on their clothing and will there be penalties for refusing to do so?
These might seem to be extreme or outrageous questions, but arguably, as the coronavirus enters its third year with no end in sight and with civil liberties constantly under attack, no question and no demand is too excessive.
What is so infuriating of course is that the Democrats who have advocated the most excessive lockdowns and ignored the crumbling economy are the same hypocrites who routinely violate their own rules, guidelines and laws.
What is more infuriating is that we have a president who half the time seems completely detached from reality and unable to discern the subject matter at hand but continues to tell the media – both social and otherwise – to censor opinions he doesn’t like.
If we haven’t entered the Orwellian world of “1984” we can’t be far from it.