Category Archives: tyranny

Coronavirus and Lockdown Overreach: Why the science is both odious and irrelevant

It is unfortunate that those of us who point out the unnecessary misery and chaos which has arisen from the embarrassing State overreaction to Covid-19 are compelled to include the epidemiological data in our arguments, as well as a variety of quotes and perspectives from scientific and medical experts in the field. And it is unfortunate for a couple of reasons.

First, it conflates and combines what are really two separate issues, the virus itself and its medical impact, and the government measures taken to manage it. The virus itself and its medical implications for you and me should have nothing whatsoever to do with the government. And if you ask me why, I will kindly direct your attention to the US unemployment and debt data, the current stats on psychological trauma related to the lockdown, as the burning cars and tire fires in front of the White House.

Second, it presumes and implies the lie that the State would have been perfectly justified and within its scope to seize control of private property, and dictate the terms by which individuals associate and where they are allowed to do so; that it would have been perfectly acceptable for the State to immediately claim ownership of every man, woman, and child, to collapse the economy, to plunge the nation into ever greater heights of unplayable debt, and usher in an pandemic of psychological fallout that shall dwarf the coronavirus and every other pandemic which came before it.

I find it ironic, if not rather depressing, that people feel that they must resort to mortality and case fatality statistics, SIR models, and R rates in order to defend the philosophical axioms that make individual existence, and all of that scientific data, possible in the first place. Among these philosophical axioms is the inviolable (without disastrous consequences) truth of one’s sovereign ownership of one’s own Self and correspondingly of one’s own labor. Further, I submit that an appeal to the epidemiological data as proof that the State has acted incompetently is really, in fact, only proof that one does not understand the State at all, nor appreciate the fact that if the defense of freedom from tyranny and exploitation were left in the hands of the scientists, with their tenuous grasp on philosophical reasoning and their irrational devotion to ludicrous determinism as an explanatory basis for anything, documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights never would have been written in the first place; and representative democracies throughout the world would never have seen the light of day.

The idea that I have to prove that the coronavirus is not particularly medically dangerous and represents no existential threat to man nor society in order to make a digestible and acceptable argument for ending the lockdown makes me, quite frankly, sick to my stomach. Neither the State nor any other agency or institution, nor man, woman, or child, may claim a right to my life, body, property, or associations, in any circumstance, ever, be it the coronavirus or a giant asteroid or a “war on terror”, a locust plague, a famine, a drought…anything. Government should never be in the business of risk management, because government, frankly, sucks at it.

The State’s answer to saving and protecting life means creating a situation in which life is not worth living. Risk management, the protection of individuals from the dangers of simply being alive, whether it involves climbing a ladder, flying on an airplane, driving a car, eating certain foods, engaging in certain sports, or navigating through the scary microscopic world of viruses and bacteria—whatever—requires nuance, an understanding and appreciation of context; it requires flexibility and temperance, a sense of proportion, and above all, an acceptance of the truth of the individual as a singular and singularly free-thinking agent, ultimately unattached to some collective ideation, and thus able to make efficacious choices in pursuit of a moral existence on his own—that is, that the individual in and of himself is naturally sufficient to his own existence.

Government understands none of this. There is nothing nuanced or delicate or nimble to the State. The State is blunt force…it is murder, it is flattened cities, it is prison, it is one-size-fits-all; it is bombs and guns and tear gas and jack boots and mushroom clouds, it is FORCE. Every drawing it makes looks like scribble, every photograph it takes is black, every song it composes is a shriek. The State knows nothing about protection, only SUBMISSION. It attacked the coronavirus with the same tool it uses to attack any problem, the only tool it has—a hammer. It cannot medically subordinate the virus…for that takes knowledge and experience and forethought and experiment; it cannot discern the at-risk from the unaffected and make public health recommendations accordingly, for that takes nuance and discernment and strategy and mercy and compassion. It cannot smash the virus into oblivion, for the virus is too small and elusive; and it cannot threaten the virus, for the virus cannot recognize its authority.

The State can, however, demolish the lives of the citizens it rules…it can “save” them by destroying them before the virus does; it can make the virus look like a party compared to the misery the State can produce. It can, within the span of a few short weeks, amass numbers of dead and dying that make the coronavirus look like a mole hill, rendering the virus completely innocuous by comparison.

How do you flatten the coronavirus curve?

By making a bigger curve out of the misery and destruction of the population you govern.

THAT is what the State is good at, and that is just what it has done.

So spare me the science; tie it to a rock and throw it in the lake. Show me a man who believes that you and I have a right to our own lives ONLY when the science shows that there is no longer any risk from the coronavirus, and I will show you a man who believes that you and I NEVER had any right to our own lives in the first place.

END

The “New Normal” is a Euphemism for Indefinite Lockdown: Why the lockdown will never end

If you have spent any time reading this blog, it is likely that you have an understanding of the nature of government, and by that I mean: the metaphysical foundations upon which government is built. If you are new to this blog, you may not yet grasp these foundations, so I will summarize them for you now. This will not be a detailed examination of the metaphysics of the State, but for the purposes of this post, it will give you a basic framework as context:

There are basically two kinds of metaphysical archetypes, Individualist and Collectivist. Individualist metaphysics allow for few if any variations of political iterations beyond the type which is pretty well obviously implied by the archetype itself. Almost exclusively Individualist metaphysics imply categorical voluntarism as the political iteration. Individualist metaphysics presume that man is ultimately a function of Himself…that is, His own ability to exist as Self, which implies Self-ownership (one’s body is owned by one’s Self, and therefore so is one’s labor), thus individualist metaphysics simply do not and cannot accommodate the existence of Coercive Authority as a means to organize humanity sociopolitically. There is no such thing as Government or the State within the politics which proceed from individualist metaphysics. All interaction and all value exchange are done ONLY at the level of the individual, and thus categorically voluntary value exchange is the only possible means of ANY value exchange of ANY kind whatsoever. The use of coercive violence to compel behavior does not exist in Individualist philosophy…at least, not a rationally consistent individualist philosophy. Coercive violence IS permitted in the case of preventing or mediating direct violations of individuals, but due to the nature of individualist ethics, this does not constitute a violation of the Self of the one violating his fellow man, and thus it is not a violation of voluntarism. I will not describe the full complexities of individualist ethics here, for obvious reasons.

Collectivist metaphysics on the other hand not only allow for the existence of governments and states but necessitate them, because the politics implied by collectivist metaphysics are rooted in violence (force) in order to compel behavior. In collectivist metaphysics a human being is not a function of himself—his own ability to exist as Self—but is instead a function of some essentially ethereal, fundamentally indescribable, inscrutable determinative force, which ultimately defies human understanding, because its infinite nature is is perfect and absolute whilst man’s is vulgar in comparison…graceless, rudimentary, and starkly finite. This determinative force can come in many iterations, an almost infinite variety or combination of them, really, from a deity, to deities, to mathematical or natural law, to evolutionary forces, biological forces, cosmological forces, ideals based on race, or culture, or national identity, tribalism, social class, economic class, mystical caste systems, etc., etc. It can even come in the guise of individualism, such as the Ideal of The People we see in the United States, where “People” is ostensibly meant to be the collection of INDIVIDUAL citizens, but, due to the a-priori presence of the State, really amounts to nothing more than another collective ideal into which individuals must be compelled by State violence.

Collectivist metaphysics, because they reject the efficacious existence of the individual, necessarily reject the efficacious existence of individual consciousness, and thus they reject the idea that the individual is fundamentally capable of making efficacious use of his volition and choice. Therefore has no ability to behave ethically as ethics are defined according to collectivist metaphysics, and thus he must be compelled by law—where the law is merely the sublimation of State violence…that is, the law gives ethical legitimacy to the State as it commits violations of individuals in the interest of the collective Ideal. Now, in the same way, the collective Ideal is the sublimation of the State, meaning that the Ideal, such as “The People” here in the U.S., doesn’t exist in any real way except as manifest by the State, itself. So the State IS the very tangible existence of the Ideal on earth. Thus, politically, the real point is to SACRIFICE the individual to the State, in service to the collective Ideal (the ideal being the determinative force which created all people and all things in the first place). And this is NEVER seen as some kind of ethical violation on the part of the State against the individual because in collectivist metaphysics, the individual doesn’t actually exist at all, remember? Consciousness, the Self, Will, Choice…these are all illusions at best, products of the unenlightened barbarian who is simply unable to grasp the truth that he is not actually HIMSELF at all. The “sinful nature” of the individual which is his fundamental existential core is his insistence that he EXISTS. Law and the State violence which accompanies and is corollary to Law is used as a means to ultimately eradicate the Self and bring the physical body into line with the Truth, which is the collective Ideal. Once a State is established, the State is all that matters because, metaphysically, the State is all that can be said to actually MEAN anything, BE anything, or DO anything of any practical value because the State is the ONLY legitimate incarnation/representation of the collective Ideal which is a function of the Determinative Force which created everything in the first place.

So what in the hell does any of this have to do with the current lockdown?

I’m glad you asked.

First, let me say that the reason I expend so much blog real estate on discussing the metaphysical roots of the State—the nature of the State—when discussing the coronavirus situation and the lockdown is that these roots of the State are where one shall find a truly meaningful explanation for what is going on in this ostensibly irrational lockdown situation. IF you understand the philosophical fundamentals upon which the State is established, then you can see that what is happening is not merely insanity run amok, or western narcissism and societal fracturing manifesting itself in response to some perceived global existential threat, or even simple political corruption perpetrated by the large number of “bad seeds” we’ve unfortunately elected to represent us. In short, if you understand the true and irreducible WHY, which is the philosophical WHY, then you can truly understand not merely what is happening now, but what will happen next—at least generally. Though what specifically will come next may reveal itself in an unforeseen way, you will readily perceive it as a necessary effect of what came before. And furthermore you will understand what is happening now in the overall context of not only the existence of the State under whose authority you find yourself at present, but the existence of the State since its inception, and indeed, the existence of ALL States. You may not be happy with what is happening, but at least you need not be confounded and frustrated at what seems like rank madness. You will see that all the “madness” actually makes sense, and you will understand that what is happening is really the only thing that could have ever happened.

Now, referring back to the metaphysical roots of government, we now know that based upon how the State defines individuals (as not fundamentally being themSelves and having no legitimate individual existence), that the State cannot actually do anything FOR people, but only TO them. The purpose of the People—the individual people that make up a given nation’s citizenry—is to be subordinated to the collective Ideal, and this means, in practicality, to the State. This is the whole point of law. Individual choice and volition is bypassed and obedience instead is the means by which the ethics of society shall be ultimately realized. What you want is irrelevant; that you OBEY is what matters to government. We can distract ourselves from the truth of our place and purpose with the bromide of rights and liberty and representative government and free elections, but since an option in any election is NEVER “no government”, then all elections are merely a reinforcement of the right of the State to exist. And the right of the State to exist implies the right of the State to pursue its purpose. And its purpose is to COMPEL individual behavior into collective action by force. Period. As a philosopher named John Immel once put it, “government is force”, and that is all you really need to know to understand government in its entirety. Thus, the only thing we are ever really voting for is the right of the State to rule us. Which makes voting itself an arrant rejection of our own volition and the efficacy of our own choices, and thus our own existence, making voting an exercise in abject Self-nullification. And we wonder why we have a deep State. Voting, ironically, implies the existence of a deep state (an unelected group of rulers who govern absolutely and indefinitely). The deep state does not exist to subvert voting; it exists as voting’s most perfect and rational conclusion.

This brings us to the salient question of this article: Why will the lockdown never end?

At this point, I’m sure you, being astute, have already discovered the answer, but I will give it here in the interest of rounding out my thoughts. The lockdown was instituted in service to the one thing that ultimately matters to the State, and represents its most basic and salient purpose:

Control.

The lockdown was applied as a means to exercise State control over the masses, which makes the fundamental reason for it the same as the reason for every other regulation. Control. Certainly the ostensible rationale was to protect public health, but this is merely a superficial apologetic for the underlying tyrannical interests of government. All State regulations have a veneer of “public interest” which is meant to imply that they are FOR the citizen, but when we remember that the term “public” is always in reference to the collective Ideal and that the State IS that Ideal incarnate, whatever is done for the public is really done FOR the State, and thus is done TO the citizen…that is, at the citizen’s expense.

Why could citizens not be left alone to deal with pandemic in their own way? Why was it assumed that the State MUST intervene with rule, regulation, and decree? Well, the reason is fundamentally found in the metaphysics. The reason man NEEDS government in the first place is that he is entirely insufficient to his own existence. The individual functions from a frame of reference of Self, of I, and instantiates this via volition and choice. But the Self is an imposter to reality according to collectivist metaphysics. Choice and Will and Self are sinful and wrong in that they contradict the State, and the State is rooted in the collective Ideal, and the collective Ideal is the Determinative Force, and THAT is what is the essence of reality is. Not the Self…not the individual. The citizens, left to themselves, will always fail, because they cannot understand reality, because they see if from an infinitely flawed frame of reference.

The reason for the lockdown, again, is control, as control is the reason for everything the State does TO the people it rules. Thus, if we ask the question “When will the lockdown end”, the answer is that it will only end when the end represents a greater measure of control. The government cannot relinquish control any more than the viper can stop slithering on the ground and begin to fly. It simply isn’t its nature. You will notice that every seeming compromise of the State with the people is merely an expression of government power…it is in the interest of power that the State makes any concessions, which makes “concession” merely a manifestation of power. Whenever the State relents here, it inevitably doubles down over there. The State never relinquishes control because control is what it IS, and it cannot BY itself DENY itself. Even if the lockdown were to be ended, what has happened? Wrecked economy, shattered societal cohesion, health crisis in every medical arena in addition to the coronavirus, explosions of alcoholism, drug use, suicide, domestic abuse, gutted lower classes, atomized populace, inner city chaos, all of which the government will predictably move in to manage, thus exponentially raising the level of State control to atmospheric heights. Add to that, we have set an irreversible precedent of plenary government control of everything and everyone in response to a crisis, which will be defined by the State, of course. Our government, in response to situations IT decides are sufficiently threatening, now openly presumes the right to dictate religion, social interaction, association, travel, commerce, business, and property ownership.

So when will the lockdown end?

At this point we can see that this question is entirely meaningless, and was always going to be meaningless. We could answer “never”, but that simply doesn’t do the profound backdrop of such a question any justice. It’s a facile answer…it’s dust. The lockdown is control, and control is the State. The lockdown is simply a necessary manifestation of existence as it is defined by collectivist metaphysics.

In other words, lockdown isn’t a lockdown, per se…

The lockdown simply is.

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Lockdown Hell: Altruism Instantiated (Part TWO)

So, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which one are you, “privileged” or “unprivileged”? Are you the sacrificed-to or the sacrificed?

Like I sad in part one of this article series, the answer when examined in the meta is: both and neither, meaning that at any give time, depending on the whims of the ruling class and on general political expediency, you could be the perfidious, mendacious, exploitative, oppressive, naturally and institutionally privileged one, who became privileged off the backs of the unprivileged which you exploit, and this according to your nature (you could never have chosen to be anything other than the oppressive monster you were born to be), and thus your property and your body shall be processed and commodified and sent as spoils to the “unprivileged” in the name of “social justice”; or you could be be the innocent victim, whose misfortune to have been born a certain way and into a specific collective identity determines that you shall ever be the unprivileged prey of the rapacious and dead-eyed privileged class. But never fear, the State shall swoop in on your behalf with its bristling guns, anxious bombs, and itchy trigger fingers to seized the collars of the petulant privileged, flip them upside down and empty their pockets straight into your gaping mouths.

But in the specific context of the coronavirus, the answer as to who is “privileged” and who is “unprivileged” is simple: If you are not in the at-risk group (elderly and/or with a comorbidity) then you are “privileged”. If you are, then you are “unprivileged”.

Notice the altruistic mantra of those vacant souls who defend the lockdown as necessary and justifiable—we can’t allow people to put other people at risk. Just because YOU may not suffer any significant effects of the coronavirus, doesn’t mean that we can allow you to infect those who might. This is markedly different from what we were first told, which was that this was an extremely deadly and dangerous virus that does not discriminate between men, women, or children, and we were regaled endlessly in the earlier days of the lockdown with horror stories of all manner of young and middle-aged people who were suddenly finding their birth date no hedge against the tiny, invisible enemy. Yet now the REAL data is in, and has managed to circumvent the editors of the Department of Propaganda and Psy-Ops, otherwise known as the mainstream media, and the findings of rational, objective, non-partisan experts are proving this pandemic to be nothing more than a relatively harmless influenza-like illness with mortality rates on par or even lower than that of the flu, and which not only DOES INDEED discriminate between the elderly and the young, but discriminates so severely that virtually no one under the age of 21 will even notice that they have it should they catch it, and anyone under 65 will almost certainly recover fully, with symptoms more likely to be mild than not. In the face of REAL facts and REAl data, which reveal that there is simply nothing to panic about, let alone worth destroying the economy and the lives of millions along with it through the seizure of all manner of life and property by the executives of the states who think that the best thing for them to do in service to public health is to channel Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin, the narrative has shifted from “we are all in this together, because we are all at risk”, to “we cannot allow YOU to put at risk those who are not so privileged as you to be young and healthy”. In other words, we have gone from “we all benefit from the lockdown” to the idea that the “privileged” must be rendered  ‘unprivileged’ so that we can all be equal and social justice satisfied. And since the State, being purely an agent of violence, coercion, and thus destruction, and is completely incapable by nature of fundamentally doing anything FOR man but only TO him, the only way to achieve equality is for the State to wreck life to the point where it is miserable for EVERYONE (except the ruling class, of course) EQUALLY, regardless of one’s choices or one’s particular natural circumstance.

In summary, as it pertains to the faux exigency in which we find ourselves, the socialist altruistic platitude has gone from “We are all in this together,” to “You must be sacrificed for the common good.”

END part TWO