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Why I am against most Covid restrictions if not all of them

  1. Because freedom matters. 
  2. Because freedom is nice in itself. 
  3. Because freedom makes for richer people. 
  4. Because freedom makes for happier people. 
  5. Because freedom makes for a more interesting life.
  6. Because freedom makes for a better life even for lazy so-and-sos like myself.
  7. Because once you lose your freedoms it can take ages to get them back if at all.
  8. Because I disagree with the apparent (i.e. never stated but always assumed) belief that the only thing that matters is reducing death and hospitalisation as a result of Covid.
  9. Because I disagree with the apparent belief that living as long as possible is the sole purpose of life. [I say that and then think, “Well, actually, freedom tends to make for longer lives, in the long run.”]
  10. Because freedom makes for longer lives.
  11. Because I doubt that the restrictions have worked even on their own terms. Or if they have worked on their own terms they haven’t worked that much.
  12. Because it is going to take years to pay for this.
  13. Because in addition to all the ways the government has already buggered up the lives of the young (housing, education, minimum wages etc (probably)) this just makes things worse.

Update 13/1/22

I notice that the subject of “early treatment” has come up. First of all, what constitutes “early treatment”? Secondly, what do we know about their effectiveness? I guess we’re talking about hydroxychloriquine, ivermectin and zinc. Are there any studies pointing to their effectiveness? Any studies saying the opposite. Whatever the case may be you would have thought that if the government genuinely wanted a quick resolution to the [I was going to say “crisis” but that’s controversial] problem they would have said, “Well, that’s interesting let’s do some studies as quickly as possible.” Instead – if memory serves – they said, “Move along, nothing to see here, conspiracy theory.” Which is kind of suspicious.

25 comments to Why I am against most Covid restrictions if not all of them

  • Duncan S

    14. Because I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t bring me into this world in order to save the NHS.

  • Paul Marks

    I am against all of the restrictions. They were never about “saving lives”, the places that did not lockdown do not have a higher death rate than the places that did lockdown.

    If the international establishment wanted to “save lives” they (Tony Fauci, Peter Daszak and the rest) would not have “improved” the virus in the first place, nor they would not have allowed it to “leak” (if it was a leak – and not deliberate release) from the Wuhan Institute, and they would not have pretended that it was harmless and allowed it to spread around the world (Wuhan was largely cut off from the rest of China – but the international airport was kept open) the World Health Organisation (and the despicable Fauci) pretended there was no problem.

    There is also the “little” problem of the smearing of EARLY TREATMENT.

    If they wanted to “save lives” (which lockdowns and other restrictions did NOT do) why did they smear Early Treatment. Most of the people who died could have been saved.

  • Shlomo Maistre

    Patrick Crozier,

    Are you not aware that there are a plethora of safe, effective, cheap, and readily available treatments for COVID-19?

    I ask this question because I am surprised to not see something like “there are safe, effective, cheap, and readily available treatments for COVID-19” anywhere on your list of reasons why you are against most COVID restrictions.

    The fact that there ARE so many safe, effective, readily available and CHEAP treatments to treat the virus is arguably the most important argument against any restrictions in response to said virus.

  • Patrick McHargue

    Agree! So many trade their, and our, freedoms for reasons based on feat. Lemmings marching along, carrying everyone else with their tide.

  • staghounds

    Because if you can’t convince people to do something by their own choice, then the something is probably not in their best interest and also screw you, tyrant.

    The Aesop story of the North Wind and the Sun, skips over the moral that people are most often rational actors when it comes to their own survival.

  • Lee Moore

    Since Duncan has taken 14 I’ll have to go for:

    15. Because all the people who are always wrong about everything are in favour of the restrictions.

  • APL

    “7. Because once you lose your freedoms it can take ages to get them back if at all.”

    Illustrated by the introduction of income tax in the UK in 1798, a temporary measure to finance the Napolonic wars.

    I don’t know, I think the Napoleonic wars are long over, but here we are, 233 years later and we still have income tax.

    In a hundred years, will people still be wearing ‘face masks’ because some regulation was introduced in 2020?

  • Rob Fisher

    I agree. And my agreement has nothing to do with anything about viruses.

  • pete

    The link between freedom and affluence is not straightforward.

    For most of human history the state has been non-existent or very small and most people were very poor.

    Recent history shows that surrendering a significant part of your freedom to the state makes you richer but if the state takes it all away then people are much poorer.

  • Paul Marks

    Yes – if they wanted to “save lives” they would not have launched a massive campaign to smear Early Treatment which could (and in some countries – actually did) save the lives of most of the people who otherwise would die of Covid 19.

    Yet they did launch a massive campaign to smear Early Treatment – therefore “saving lives” was clearly NOT the objective of the international establishment.

  • Patrick Crozier (Twickenham)

    That’s quite the claim, pete. Both of them. What makes you think that? Either or both.

  • pete

    Patrick, the richest societies are capitalist democracies ones where the state takes a significant proportion of everyone’s money.

    The poorest are either societies with no effective state or a totalitarian state.

    Too much or too little freedom is a bad thing.

  • Patrick Crozier

    So, who would you say has too much freedom?

  • bobby b

    “So, who would you say has too much freedom?”

    Probably a cheating answer, but I’d say those which have decided to defund their police. That’s pretty close to “no effective state.”

    Who knew the left were such ultra-Libertarians?

    (Pete might well say Somolia. Tons of freedom from the nonexistent state.)

  • Shlomo Maistre

    Are there any studies pointing to their effectiveness?

    https://c19early.com/

  • Paul Marks

    There are many studies – and now a book “Overcoming the Covid Darkness”, the book being about the successful treatment of over seven thousand Covid patients in the United States.

    It did not have to be the way it was in Britain and the United States – some countries went down a better road, the road of Early Treatment.

  • Paul Marks

    The claim by “Pete” that a bigger government makes people less poor than they otherwise would have been, is false.

    It is a falsehood – and a very important falsehood. It is the foundational lie that is behind the “Social Reform” that is destroying the West.

    If it was the truth then, for example, the reservations in South Dakota (such as Pine Ridge) would have less poverty than the rest of South Dakota – as the reservations have tribal ownership of land and lots and lots of benefits and government services (funded by the Federal government). In reality such places as Pine Ridge are known for incredibly high (not low – high) levels of poverty.

    Nor is it accident that people are fleeing high tax and high regulation States such as New York and California – such places (the heart of “Social Reform”) once had much lower poverty than other places, now (since all the “reform”) they have much more poverty than other places.

    The normal trick of the “Social Reformer” is to compare periods of different technology and then claim that the reduction of poverty is due to the bigger government.

    For example, “there was less poverty in 1990 than in 1890 – therefore the bigger government of 1990 is the cause of their being less poverty”.

    Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed had Britain in 1890 had the level of taxation and spending (and regulations) that existed in 1990 (let alone now – when things are even worse) then most people in 1890 would have starved to death.

    A richer society, many decades of technological advance and Capital accumulation, mean that it can withstand much higher levels of government taxation and spending, and regulation.

    To argue (as “Pete” would) that the higher levels of taxation and government spending, and regulation, is the cause of the lower poverty, is the height of absurdity.

    On the contrary – poverty would be much lower had the “Social Reform” not taken place. As we can see from countries that did not go so far down the “Social Reform” path was we did.

    For example, as recently as the 1930s Switzerland was much POORER than the United Kingdom – that is certainly not true now.

  • Snorri Godhi

    Shlomo: many thanks for the link.
    I am going to forward it to my friends with MDs.

    And congratulations to Paul for putting his finger on the fallacy in pete’s argument:

    For example, “there was less poverty in 1990 than in 1890 – therefore the bigger government of 1990 is the cause of their being less poverty”.

    Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed had Britain in 1890 had the level of taxation and spending (and regulations) that existed in 1990 (let alone now – when things are even worse) then most people in 1890 would have starved to death.

    A richer society, many decades of technological advance and Capital accumulation, mean that it can withstand much higher levels of government taxation and spending, and regulation.

    But credit to pete for accepting that more government is not always better.
    (My position is that the main problem is not the quantity of government, but its **growth**. No matter how much government you want, you’ll eventually get more than you want. And if you want totalitarian government, you’ll soon regret it.)

  • Paul Marks

    Thank you Snorri Godhi.

    The old saying was “there is a lot of ruin in a great nation” – once a nation (or civilisation) is great (has accumulated lots of economic and cultural capital) it often takes a long time to decline and fall. For example the policies of the Emperor Diocletian were insane (utterly so) – but Rome did not collapse over night, it took a very long time indeed. Policy in Britain and the United States has been mad (utterly mad) for many decades – but the great technological civilisation we have has not yet fallen.

  • Paul Marks

    The last American President who could remember when the United States was a really limited government society was Eisenhower – there was no income tax, or Federal Reserve, or FBI secret police (and on and on) when he was a young man. But we are where we are in the modern world.

    It is interesting how fast politics changes (“a week is a long time in politics”) – now Prime Minister Johnson (in an effort to save himself) is said to be preparing to get rid of all Covid restrictions in England (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland being under different administration).

    This makes Alexander Johnson more of a pro liberty “right winger” (as pro liberty people are now called – although “right” and “left” are used for so many contradictory things they are almost useless terms in politics) than Patrick Crozier was when he wrote this post.

    By the way Patrick – hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and zinc is a different Early Treatment route to ivermectin.

    There are many studies the can be found via such sites as America’s front line doctors.

    There is also a new book out “Overcoming The Covid 19 Darkness” – which covers the experience of successful Early Treatment for over seven thousand patients.

    If over seven thousand patients is not a big enough sample for the establishment – it is hard to know what number would satisfy them.

    As always – go to a properly qualified medical doctor with experience of successfully treating the sickness.

    If a doctor says “there is nothing I can do for you – just sit at home without treatment”, then you have gone to the wrong doctor.

    It is true that many people recover on their own without treatment – but some people most certainly do need Early Treatment, and it is not expensive.

  • Deep Lurker

    The people advocating the early treatments spoke of them like real-world treatments rather than wonder panacea miracle cures. (Which greatly boosted their credibility, in my eyes.) In particular, they warned “You have to apply the treatment *this* way instead of *that* way or else you can’t expect it to work.”

    So the skeptics/opponents ran scientific studies and confirmed that yes indeedy, if you apply the treatment *that* way it doesn’t work. Which then got simplified and shouted through megaphones as “EARLY TREATMENT DOES NOT WORK!”

  • Shlomo Maistre

    The people advocating the early treatments spoke of them like real-world treatments rather than wonder panacea miracle cures.

    Indeed. There are a LOTS of things to know about early treatment and how to make treatment work. Here are two of the main things to know:
    1. Early treatment of respiratory viruses, including COVID-19, is more effective the earlier the treatment begins. The best time to start treatment is as soon as one is diagnosed with COVID-19. In reality, most hospitals have instructed their doctors to not prescribe medication to treat COVID-19 in outpatient care, i.e. – only patients who were already hospitalized were prescribed medication and by then its TOO LATE. In fact, the emergency use authorization (which Dr Peter McCullough correctly called an effective restriction) for hydroxychloroquine explicitly forbade prescribing hydroxychloroquine as part of out-patient care. This is one way of many ways the suppression of early treatment was successfully enforced by the agencies and governments, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths that could have been saved.
    2. Like with treating most respiratory viruses, use of multiple treatments to treat COVID-19 in combination is far superior to one or two in isolation.

    Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, etc are very ineffective when used for hospitalized patients because by the time someone is hospitalized those treatments and most treatments are generally not effective. But in the early ambulatory phase, those treatments, particularly when used in combination, are highly effective in treating COVID-19.

    Pointing to scientific studies that use only ivermectin or only hydroxychloroquine in the treatment regimen is an easy and disingenuous way to dismiss those treatment methods because any doctor knows that only one treatment is rarely by itself sufficient to treat any respiratory virus, particularly COVID019. Also pointing to scientific studies that use treatments in patients that are already hospitalized is also an easy and disingenuous way to dismiss treatments because by then treatments are not nearly as effective as when they are used properly (ie, when first diagnosed).

  • Shlomo Maistre

    “There are good modeling studies proving that half a million excess deaths [from covid-19] have happened in the USA through the intentional blockade of early treatment by the US Government. Half a million. This is a well documented fact.” – Dr Robert Malone, inventor of the mRNA vaccine technology and one of the top virologists in the world.

    Source:
    https://odysee.com/@CameraMemes:7/dr-robert-malone-joe-rogan-experience-1093:5c

    At 29:40

    This is virtually identical to what Dr Peter McCullough, Dr Vladimir Zelenko, and other doctors have said publicly in recent months, as well.

    Genocide.

  • Gospace

    My son in the Free State of Florida was recently diagnosed with the dreaded covid. Like me, unvaxxed. His doctor prescribed the full I-KASK+ treatment regimen that van be found at https://covid19criticalcare.com/, including ivermectin. The prescription was filled from a compounding pharmacy, all of which seem to be independently owned and operated. The major chains won’t touch an ivermectin prescription. He said a few hours after the first ivermectin dose he started feeling better. His doctor says the practice he is at has yet to lose a patient to covid since they started this.

    I think the really big scandal is Vitamin D. The official medical position on Vitamin D is- don’t test anyone for it unless they are showing clinical signs of Vitamin D deficiency. If you’re showing signs of that- you’re seriously sick. Estimated of Vitamin D deficiency in the USA range from 42%-75% depending on source. And, in studying this since the covidiocy began, I found that studies going back over a decade ago have shown that high Vitamin D blood levels are associated with better outcomes, and low Vitamin D blood levels worse outcomes, in every respiratory disease studied- including tuberculosis. They have yet to find a single death from covid where the Vitamin D blood level was >50 ng/ml. Which cannot, AFAIK, be achieved by sunlight. It was known early in the covidiocy that there was an inverse relationship between Vitamin D blood levels and ICU admission.

    And yet, the official policy is- no routine testing for Vitamin D blood levels. My last check was 60 ng/ml. Because my new VA practitioner discovered I was (GASP!) taking extra Vitamin D supplements! She was deathly worried I might be suffering from Vitamin D intoxication. The average person has to work hard to get there- defined as over 100 ng/ml. Symptoms can appear in some at 70-80…however, taking Vitamin K stops that. Seems Vitamin D doesn’t work by itself. If the body has a lot- it uses it. And when it uses it- it uses up Vitamin K. Again, something I found out from studying Vitamin D since the covidiocy began. I was already taking a Vitamin K supplement.

    And wouldn’t you know there are several groups that are notoriously low in Vitamin D blood levels, two being long term care facility residents, from too little sun, and obese people, because the fat cells suck up the Vitamin D. And the people who have died most frequently from the dreaded covid? Nursing home residents and obese people… Coincidence? I think not.

    Another group- sailors, most especially submariners. We don’t get a lot of sun underwater. And studies have shown that supplementation with the RDA of Vitamin D isn’t enough to maintain adequate levels. And what has the Navy medical department and all the flag officers done with this knowledge? Absolutely not a f—–g thing.