As IF Times

Recently, revelations about the number and efficacy of vaccines taken by people have finally been called to question.  For several generations, vaccines of all kinds were foisted on the public, who generally acquiesced to the ‘wisdom’ of the medical industry.  The Covid nonsense woke up the public and suddenly the revelation that children were obliged to take, in some cases over 72 vaccines as compared to only about 4 in the early 60’s, came under renewed scrutiny.  These statistics are sobering.  Populations become de-sensitized to the abnormal.

We’ve become acclimatized to other things as well. It occurred to me that a big chunk of our modern lives is consumed with maintaining records or logs of some kind with all kinds of organizations, without us even realizing it. Everyone and I mean everyone in the world (with access to a smartphone or computer) is obliged to maintain a password of some kind. Losing or forgetting this password leads to all kinds of inconveniences and aggravation disrupting our daily lives.  That’s the least of it.

In reality, to function in today’s society, there are passcodes and checks on every aspect of our lives.  Banking; Netflix; Spotify; Amazon; health clubs; loyalty cards; government services; airlines; etc. etc.   My own survey reveals that I need passcodes to enter over 100 different sites and services. We become indoctrinated to believe that this is just part of life.

Even going to McDonald’s these days can be an IQ test, since there are often electronic kiosks to enter your order in place of communicating with a real person.  You are prompted for your membership identity first.  Someone decided that having machines with member requirements were more efficient than telling a human that you want a big mac. Let’s not even mention the byzantine hoops of government websites and services one has to navigate if you want some kind of government agency information.  May God have mercy on anyone who is the subject of a government clerical error on a form that needs to be fixed.

But those are just nuisance inconveniences. The real oppression comes in the form of fees, taxes and costs… simply to exist.  A quick Google search reveals that the average American pays over 97 distinct taxes including of course, the hated income and property taxes.

From the time you are born, there are fees and costs for you to exist.  Someone has to pay for the hospital costs and I understand that there is even a movement to implement a ‘birthing tax’ on newborns. From that point forward, your entire life is spent in pursuit of making enough money to pay taxes and fees just to be a human.  A massive lucrative industry exists just to guide people on how to keep the money they earn and shield themselves from taxes.  Nowhere else in the animal kingdom are animals required to pay just to live.  If you are fortunate enough to have anything left to leave to your family after a lifetime of paying taxes, then surprise, surprise, there are death and estate taxes.

All of this is tied to the exponential reach and growth of government over our lifetimes. If I wanted to enumerate all the taxes and fees that have been introduced in the past 50 years, it would be an exhaustive list and not really the point of this discussion. Suffice to say, you’d be hard pressed to cite a case of a removal of any given tax or fee once implemented.  Thus, taxes tend to stack up like vaccines doses as people accept them without questioning them.

People have now become accustomed to the mountain of taxes and fees foisted upon them without adequate justification.  It’s accepted as the cost of living. It’s like the new normal of 20% minimum tipping at restaurants. People may complain, but they go along to get along. Never ending taxes and fees are like parasites eating at the body, subtly but surely.   Politicians know this innately.  They will never have the pressure of having to justify their spending bills because public pushback is tepid and passing.  What’s more, they have the ability to vote themselves raises…because of the price increases that they cause.  Thus, people’s fight for simple existence is really against those supposedly charged with their care!

In the animal world, most creatures have to worry about the dangers posed by other species for their survival.  Only in the human world is the most dangerous animal their own species, slowly pecking them to death without them even being aware.  The best analogy is the one about the frog being unknowingly boiled in increasingly warmer water.  It seems as if humans are in a lot of hot water.

source: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/un-wants-10-global-tax-pay-new-global-shared-responsibility-program-address-coronavirus-pandemic/

And here we go. You knew it was coming. One of the most useless organizations in the world has come to the table with a means of ameliorating the global panic.  It’s not even a novel salve, it’s their standard fix that has been used over and over again since they figured out how easy it was to administer.  The fix is….MORE TAXES! Yes folks, nothing is broken so badly that assessing more taxes won’t fix it. Every adverse condition facing humanity, whether natural or man-made can be resolved effectively if only more tax money was thrown at the UN.

Using this vast and unlimited  funding source, armies of clerks, bureaucrats and supporting casts of incompetents set about righting the global wrongs that materialize like mushrooms after a rain.  There is no disaster too daunting for the anointed poo bahs at the UN. It all sounds noble and worthwhile until you consider that the main reason that the UN came into existence was to stop armed conflict.

After 70 years, that seems to still be a work in progress.   So in order to increase their influence, they’ve taken on other lofty humanitarian causes; hunger, children, pestilence and disease.  Recently, to expand their portfolio, they’ve decided to take on the weather as well.  It’s as if a contractor was working on the roof of your home but then decided to start working on your lawn, on the car, as well as your children’s homework.

This model is not lost on those in the government racket all the way down to the state, city and village level.  From a mandate that narrowly defines their role, they somehow position themselves as the ultimate arbiter for the public good. Like the UN, many of these people who wind up in office as glorified dog catchers are hopelessly underqualified for the roles for which they presume to fill.  Despite this incompetence, they are empowered by their status of ‘official’ influence to enact policies that are not well thought out and in many cases detrimental to their constituents.  This is proof of the old saw that there is nothing so bad that governments can’t make worse.

We can observe this in real time today with the hysterical response to the Covid 19 outbreak, aided, in fairness, by a hyper ventilating media.  Medical experts are paraded in front of the public every day to express their sincere, though alarmist views on the spread.  Naturally, their opinions are viewed through the lens of their profession. If you asked lawyers how to reduce crime, they would respond by proposing more laws;  the police would call for more cops; judges would call for more jails and alarm companies would insist on more installations.  What these people often cannot see are the wider consequences of their views.

The present shutdown of the planet (because that’s what it is) is the equivalent manifestation of the old joke about the operation being successful but the patient dying. While it’s socially desirable to protect those that are in danger, this number is small compared to the long term and possibly irreparable damage done the population at large.   This is not Sophie’s choice.  There are many logical means by which to curtail the spread of not just this virus, but any disease that doesn’t necessitate the suspension of everything in the civilized world.

Virtually all political leaders everywhere have succumbed to the pressure of enforcing radical shutdowns of their communities.  But even as draconian measures are implemented against free citizens, much more severe damage is being done economically worldwide.  While people are given fines for walking in the park or standing less than six feet apart, jobs are lost, businesses close, social unrest festers and a list of other frightening consequences are brewing which will have far greater devastating impact on society than will the deaths of people from the flu.

We can already see the first attempts to ‘fix’  the consequences of these actions.  Governments are promising money to support those displaced by the shutdown of all life.  While this may engender some political support, this is like handing out umbrellas in a hurricane.  Without the revenue that comes from a vibrant, working economy, the money comes from nowhere.  While it may appear to be a grand gesture, it’s actually a tax. Without the revenue from a productive private sector economy, there will be no hospitals, no medical equipment and no means by which to save the social safety net that people have assumed would always exist. For a recent case history on this dynamic, Venezuela is exhibit “A”.

Unless they print money out of thin air, the guaranteed wages  and pensions of civil employees will shrink and yes, perhaps even the politicians who make such poorly thought out policies.  The insulated public sector cannot be sustained by a non functioning private sector. Right now, the private sector are having their livelihoods, savings and pensions destroyed because of ill thought out policies.  The irony is that the people who are charged with fixing the problem are the very ones responsible for creating it in the first place.

This last month of hysteria has exposed the alarmingly shallow understanding of the big picture that exists at all levels of public institutions. The ability to jerk knees is hardly a standard by which people should be allowed to make decisions that so drastically affect people’s lives.  We can only hope that this episode will result in more thoughtful people entering the public policy arena.