Back when I was a teenager, I had a smart ass friend who corrected every history teacher he ever had in this way: Vietnam wasn't a War, it was a Police Action.
Korea wasn't a War, it was a Police Action.
Lebanon wasn't a War, it was a Police Action....
You get the drift. The last time the United States formally declared war on another country was in 1942, when Roosevelt declared war on Germany's allies Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania.
Coincidentally, the last time Americans, as a people, collectively sacrificed to win a "war" was World War II. Libertarians have correctly felt America should not have been in many (if not all) of the military excursions in the last 75 years.
We sent troops to Grenada in the 80's for god's sake.
G-R-E-N-E-D-A
So as a mysterious "once in a century pandemic" set in, it required a wartime response of cohesiveness and sacrifice. But since we have been fighting in never ending "police actions," and we currently have troops in over 150 countries, there was no interest in a wartime response against any enemy, let alone an invisible enemy. No one in this country even remembers what a wartime response would entail.
With the country split, it should have been time for Libertarians to step up and win the discourse. Of course they didn't:
Masks in Public:
Every Libertarian on the National Level decried the use of masks as government overreach. It was, but the reaction should have been that we want to stop the pandemic and are willing to sacrifice, short term, to defeat Covid. How can I say such a thing? Because within the next decade, facial recognition technology will be infringing on all aspects of our lives. One day, we will be fighting for the right to wear masks in public.
School Choice:
As fights rage on over school curriculums, the Covid pandemic gave many parents the perfect opportunity to opt out of the public school system and go with homeschooling. Guess what? I work for a school district and 95% of the kids who opted for virtual learning track are back in the classrooms.
Parents complained that virtual learning was hard because their kids didn't want to sit in front of a laptop all day. Yeah, because real homeschooling involves parents setting up their own educational programs and actually teaching their kids, not planting them in front of a video screen.
Masks at Work
No matter where you work, there's a dress code or uniform standard. If you really don't like wearing masks to work, become a consultant, start your own business, or invest in a marijuana farm.
You don't want to wear a mask at your job at the Amazon Warehouse? You, sir or madam, have a death wish. Would you like me to personally send you a list of things I don't like doing at my job that aren't in the job description? Warning, it's a long list.
Mandatory Vaccines
One of the few jobs of the government SHOULD be mandatory vaccines. We eradicated diseases such as smallpox and polio. People are against the Covid vaccines for what reason exactly? Because they are alarmed about Gullain Barre Syndrome? Because they don't realize Jenny McCarthy's rumormongering has been debunked?
"Fred Hunt, you don't sound very Libertarian at all. I think you may be a liberal in disguise."
<sigh>
Listen, in January of 2020, we wrote about a mysterious virus killing people in China while most of the American Media was preoccupied with Impeachment: Impeachment Part II or We're All Going to Die Anyways. With nearly 2 years of hindsight in the rearview mirror, SOMETHING happened in Wuhan:
All fingers seem to point to the dates October 18, 2019 to October 27, 2019, the 2019 Military Games.
Let's start where there's some agreement (cough, cough.) Almost 10,000 military members from nearly 140 countries participated in Wuhan in the fall of 2019. Congresspersons in America are demanding we investigate this event as an origin case study. The Chinese, at one time, agreed that the Wuhan games were the culprit, but that they weren't the cause, but they were infiltrated by a US serviceman with Covid. (A theory that has since been wiped from the Chinese internet.)
In a normal emerging pathogen outbreak, there's not this "he said, she said" banter. At one time, the Wuhan Institute of Technology was pointed to as the culprit. If you publicly said that the WIT Theory was the case, at one time, you were banned from the internet, and, at a different time, you were praised on the internet. The problem with the WIT Theory is that it doesn't quite fit the timeline of Fall Italian cases. What if the virus originated in Italy? THEN an individual brought it to China? The Italians have been transparent, the Chinese? Not so much.
Science should cross borders. For two years, science has been crushed under the weight of international politics. So if you block out the noise of the Communists, Republicans, and Democrats, there remains one simple question in the Covid origin search. Why is China uncooperative? As all paths continue to circle around to Wuhan, the answer is just as simple: The Chinese are either a-holes, or Covid is a Chinese weapon. There are no other options.
It makes no sense for the Chinese to be jerks for no reason. So if you look closely at the Chinese, since the death of Li Wenliang, they have amped up their nuclear weapons production, developed hypersonic missiles, threatened Japan, threatened Taiwan, threatened Australia, and expanded their military presence into space, including their explosive anti-satellite systems. Don't forget about the Chinese concentration camps and re-education centers.
If you look at the 'Covid as a Chinese Biological Weapon' theory, instead of a naturally occurring virus, it makes more sense in the way that the Chinese are behaving on the world stage. Not what they say, but what their overarching narratives are in the region.
The key to my skepticism that Covid had an origin in nature is Long Hauler's Syndrome. I follow a group on Facebook called Survivor Corps and it is littered with victims of Covid that are still symptomatic a year+ after their illnesses. What illness behaves similarly to Covid in nature?
None.
I am protected by the U.S. Constitution and I am cognizant that my voice would be squelched in many other pockets of civilization because I am owned by no one. There is a difference between American speech rights and what is happening in other parts of the world.
While I was writing this piece, CNN came out with a Voices of Freedom series. At first I was impressed, then I got out my magnifying glass:
Yaffa Fredrick: Summed up all 13 stories by saying that due to the January 6th riots, democracy in America was hanging in the balance. CNN allowed Fredrick her long form content without rebuttal from Donald Trump. She mentioned the millions in damage on January 6th, omitted the billions in damage from the Social Justice Riots.
Fatou Jaw Manneh: Given a platform from her perspective growing up in Gambia. No rebuttal.
Garry Kasparov: Given a platform from his perspective as a Russian chess world champion. Putin was not given a rebuttal.
Leopoldo Lopez: Given a platform from his perspective as a political prisoner in Venezuela. No rebuttal.
Marina Nemat: Given a platform from her perspective growing up in Iran. No rebuttal.
Nury Turkel: Given a platform from his perspective growing up in a Chinese "reeducation camp." CNN placed quotations in the headline. But here's the whole point of this little exercise. At the end of Turkel's article, CNN slapped on this rebuttal:
Editor's Note: The Chinese government has repeatedly denied any allegations of crimes -- including forced labor and forced sterilization -- against the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples. It claims it is providing the Uyghurs with education at "vocational training centers" while assisting in deradicalization efforts to combat alleged terrorism.
Here's the screen shot in case you don't believe me. (And to reinforce emphasis.)
Right now, today, there is already a propaganda war with the Chinese using corporate media entities as pawns with dollars as weapons. In America, just like I am protected by the Constitution, CNN is protected by the Constitution. But here's the difference, if I go to China, I am kind of screwed for stuff I wrote just last week.
CNN does business in China. In order to do business in China, brands need to make certain concessions like the disclaimer above in order to continue their business dealings in China. Let's say Iran wanted to place a disclaimer on the Nemat article. I'm confident CNN would tell the Iranian government to get bent.
Pound for pound, I still adhere to about 80% of the core tenets of libertarianism. I am willing to compromise on Covid because I believe it is the first wave of weaponry from a Chinese offensive. We, as Americans, are in this together. I don't want to die of Covid, and I don't want my you, my neighbor, to die of Covid. I am unwilling to compromise my free speech to a Communist attack. CNN, on the other hand, has already shown it is willing to sacrifice free speech for the cost of doing business in the Chinese state.
Every time Covid restrictions have gone to court, they have been struck down. The Constitution states that no pandemic can curtail civil liberties. To me, there is a difference between co-operation and kowtowing to a foreign government.
Am I willing to spill American blood to defend Taiwan? Uh, no. But Covid as a weapon fits the War Model.
You know why Xi hasn't left China in nearly 2 years? The War Model. Why are there Chinese Prison Camps? The War Model. Why does Xi want to consolidate sovereign lands? The War Model.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I'm dead wrong about China. Patient Zero was a handsome Spanish businessman who spread Covid to his other young and healthy friends throughout the countries along the Mediterranean Sea. Covid was potentially in Spain, France, Italy, and Greece in the Summer of 2019. For some reason, Covid didn't catch fire until Patient Thirty-Seven traveled to Wuhan.
Covid did not materialize out of the thin air, it came from somewhere. I used my free speech rights to SPECULATE what I believed happened in Wuhan based on the actions of the Chinese government and what I've read here in America. Unlike China, speculation in America is not a crime. If Covid occurred naturally, it is crucial that we find the source so we can be prepared for further mutations that could potentially be worse.
Editor's Note: Notice how the Chinese don't seem to have any interest in finding the source of Covid anymore? Somehow, someway, within weeks we are able to identify mutations in Covid genes and trace those back to the individual the mutations occurred in.
My wife has worked at the local hospital as a nurse throughout the pandemic. At no time were reporters ever banned from the hospital. If anything, reporters avoided hospitals like the plague (literally). I have seen nurses do tik tok videos from inside the hospital, I have seen leaked videos from patient's families on the news, and I have seen news reports from outside of hospitals. I can only recall one Covid story from a corporate news entity INSIDE of an American hospital.
During the first wave of Covid, a few brave citizen journalists took their phones into the hospitals and said "the hospitals are empty." Yeah, they were. I had a medical emergency and saw the local empty hospital firsthand. I can also tell you that in Waves 3 & 5, the same hospital was chock full. Not only with Covid patients, but patients of all kinds.
I am telling you what I saw and I am telling you what my wife saw without fear of being jailed or being disappeared. It is an important delineation to make between myself and Fang Bin or Chen Qiushi.
There are still sealed court documents related to World War II which are due to be released in the years 2041-2045. One day, you'll see if I was right or wrong about Covid origins, but that day may not be for a hundred years. I am just one person who has given you my perspective, but millions are lining up to defend Chinese interests, while millions of others are lining up to accuse China of a cover up.
Just pay attention to what version of the truth you are being sold.