It has arrived, a pandemic. It swept the world, we watched, laughed and ignored it. Memes were made, media excitedly reported and millions speculated. It was fun to tinker inside of our minds what we would do should the zombie hoards arrive. We had seen the movies, but more honestly we had witnessed it on a smaller scale, with Black Friday sales or in localized settings during a storm or a hurricane. Now slowly but surely it is upon us and we have more of what was before. All you can do in the end is be scared.
Those with the mandate to protect us and inform lost our trust long ago. But what alternatives do we now have? For many of us we have a monolithic public health system that was already at capacity in the before. No matter how much funding, it would never be enough. The entity is swollen, incoherent and inefficient but most of all it is centralized. None of which work at the best of times, in a crisis it is guaranteed to fail. But all of us no matter how independent we think, are ultimately dependents.
The media, those corporate, state run and alternative, all meander with truths and sometimes facts. They entertain and seek a social media credit or advertiser friendly output that tends to lose the directness that is often needed. The memes are often deceptive and just for the LOLs or to shock. The censors and social media reviewers mince whatever information comes through and then celebrities and ‘influencers’ are sought as though fame is a verification of enlightenment. The favorite podcaster is suddenly an authority, any voice will do so long as it sounds calm, informed and reasonable. Those official and in authority, they have broken that trust far too many times that even their most ardent supporters and dependents grow weary.
The conspiracy theories and more government controllers all unite in their own self affirmations. They were right all along, they declare. The numbers all coincide, Dean Koontz predicted it, Bill Gates will profit from it, the cabal of Zionist, reptilian, Satanist, central banking, big pharma, etc. all manufactured this simply to (insert reason here). Meanwhile individuals are lost beneath the fog of theories. Those yearning to rule boast that if only they had more control then they would have prevented it, if only they or people like them controlled us all, then none of this would happen. Yet it did and will continue to happen.
Social Media, a mere medium of innocent utility, is now locked in a tug of war between the benevolent availability of direct communication between distant strangers and familiars, a source of immediate information from across the globe and even outer space. Against the menacing idiocy of viral trends, memers of flamboyant idiocracy and self-directed bias ensuring a self-directed algorithm of ignorance. Toilet paper is now a desperate commodity, the run on the banks of the Great Depression is now a run on another disposable paper.
What will the outcome be? It is safe to say that most of us will suffer the COVID-19 virus, how it harms our health will likely be determined by our circumstances. Many who have neglected and lavishly destroyed their health over the years are suddenly concerned with it, and many who have invested great energy in maintaining it may not find medical treatment anytime soon. Human bodies will no doubt survive long after the collective sanity does.
How will the economic rebound take shape? The moment is one of historical interest. To be studied and scoffed generations from now, with hindsight experts will declare an omnipotent answer but here in the moment everyone is self-absorbed and lost in the momentum. Like a piece of snow in the avalanche, individual destiny lost to the chaos as it gains inertia and the inevitable crash. The partisanship of politics ensures that the cure is around the corner next time should you vote in their favor, the left and right idiocy of rule proclaims that they are the answer to it all. In the end, regardless here we are. Perhaps helpless, maybe frightened. Things that do not feed the virus but the infection of tyranny.
Businesses, individuals of independent means and traders will suffer. While those on pensions, in government will find the incoming stream of fiat, a stimulus will be injected again with the menace of inflation only to prop up the larger businesses who can then pay their employees to take long periods of time away. The self-employed, already drained from the parasites of regulatory toxicity cannot take a hit of such proportion. The slowdown will be murderous for them. But it is likely already too late. But how deep will this go? It will be then with resilience and endurance that those independent individuals will thrive and survive, the entitled will need to adapt or get out of the way.
The monstrosity of hospitals, mega structures of public health which were already over daunted before the pandemic will become places of further infection. The elites in their field of health will be concentrated in one stew of sickness. What if this virus mutates and becomes worse? What if it is devastating in its re-infection? Events and festivals are to be shut down, schools and universities soon to follow suit. How will the police go about their day-to-day, will revenue raising still be a priority or will it give way to looming uncertainty.
The massive public health system of ideological righteousness that has been imposed on most nations can barely survive the normal times. Its waste and bureaucratic sludge is a menace to those who truly do want to offer care and treatment to the sick and desperate. Cost is never as important as efficiency. Having such a centralized monstrosity has never been efficient and as the pandemic arises, it will only compound the situation. Should a vaccine be discovered, how effective will it be? Will it play well with the other medications and vaccinations that are already being handed out for the ‘normal’ sicknesses.
There is already a wariness of vaccine fatigue from within the community. Whether they work or not the long-term effects are not truly known, furthermore not all vaccines are the same. With the cocktail of chemicals already being ingested and injected by most people what are the widespread effects over time on the individual and the future generations? Will individuals be forced to take the vaccine? Whether it is effective or not, has been trialed sufficiently or is being pushed through out of desperation. Already among the more wary there exists an absolute anti-vaccine cabal of zealots, then those who are as just as ardent in their favor. Any in between that look at each with consideration and honest enquiry become lost to the screaming blowhards of both extremes. How much will this influence the treatment in the long run?
China the world’s manufacturer is no longer producing many of the goods that many decried, suddenly the excessive wages, benefits and regulations that killed domestic industry are starving nations. Instead of having a dynamic private sector nations find that the lumbering public sector continues to swell and impose, but the shelves grow empty and the economy shrinks. The offices full of bureaucrats will soon be empty as they are sent home so those truly needed will keep the world going.
Perhaps in time when the death toll rises, corruption emerges, and extreme measures are sought then those who dare to report on it will suffer the censors wrath. It is after all an international crisis; the truth and facts can be damned in such a situation. Despite the rhetoric of a free press, something that federal police raids on journalists in Australia and the continued mistreatment in custody of Julian Assange have shown us to not really matter in the end. The wars, that sacred ritual of government, will likely continue and in the time of such a desperate crisis the true reporting on them will be lost to the fear mongering of pandemic and greater dependence in the powers that be.
Despite this being a worldwide crisis, the wars go on. With as much lust for murder as the serial killer in a plague the military seeks the blood of the innocent and their enemies with constant enthusiasm. The embargoes on Iran and Yemen will continue. While those in the West waffle on about toilet paper, the already desperate seek clean water and salt. The pressure from the most powerful empire on this planet is not relaxed as the people at the bottom continue to suffer, from foreign bombs and aggression to the domestic tyrants of the homegrown variety.
Be scared, but don’t be. Trust the authorities but be self-sufficient. Socially isolate but still go to work and school in some situations. Work from home if you can, yet the question beckons in the Global Warming climate why were people not doing that in the first place? Why were offices and city businesses necessary in the first place if the technology already was in place for people to operate from home? Why did activists and political masters not simply Skype conference instead of jet set and enjoy the luxuries of exquisite hotels and restaurants. The new normal is uncertainty and hopefully in months from now it will be a phase as perplexing as the fidget spinner and concerns over Pokémon Go.
It is easy to be pro-liberty in the light of day with sun on our faces but inside the dark cold of uncertainty that deceptive, deadly, incompetent and ever restrictive government becomes a seductive glow of reason. It is a temptation that cowards of principle approach because inside of the scare they cannot imagine a freer alternative to the calamity and crisis. The calculations of the central planners become more coherent than the infinite possibilities of anarchy. It is with the democratic carnage of the mob that the avalanche swallows us all because the voices of individual reason and champions of liberty become silenced, infected at times by the virus of fear. The cure for COVID-19 is unknown currently but the anecdote to the pandemic of human idiocy and destruction is liberty. The monolith that inhibits, prohibits and constricts us all is not only getting in our way but its own self. Central monstrosities are dangerous, their necessity are based on ideology and belief but worst of all the need for jobs, more of their jobs and economy of excessive waste. Less is sometimes best, less of the monster, less constrictions. But always more freedom.
