Tag Archives: #ResistanceIsFutile

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Wir müssen Ihre Dokumente sehen! Max Boot wants to see your papers!

What is fascism? The term is bandied about so much, but it does actually mean something. From the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Fascism

Robert Soucy
Professor Emeritus of History, Oberlin College. American historian specializing in French fascist movements (1924-39), European fascism, and 20th-century European intellectual history; French fascist intellectuals…

Fascism, political ideology and mass movement that dominated many parts of central, southern, and eastern Europe between 1919 and 1945 and that also had adherents in western Europe, the United States, South Africa, Japan, Latin America, and the Middle East. Europe’s first fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, took the name of his party from the Latin word fasces, which referred to a bundle of elm or birch rods (usually containing an ax) used as a symbol of penal authority in ancient Rome. Although fascist parties and movements differed significantly from one another, they had many characteristics in common, including extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites, and the desire to create a Volksgemeinschaft (German: “people’s community”), in which individual interests would be subordinated to the good of the nation.

Max Boot, the Washington Post columnist and well-known neo-conservative, has stated, explicitly, that he believed Donald Trump was a fascist, and Mr Boot is educated enough to know just what fascist means:

Might we then conclude that the distinguished Mr Boot believes that individual interests should not be subordinated to the good of the nation? Well, if we did conclude that, we would be wrong.

Stop pleading with anti-vaxxers and start mandating vaccinations

by Max Boot | July 19, 2021 | 2:53 PM EDT

It’s time to get serious about coronavirus vaccinations. Stop pleading and start mandating.

For the past six months, President Biden, joined by every public health authority in the land, has been begging Americans to get vaccinated. The “pretty, please” approach isn’t working. According to The Post’s covid-19 tracker, in the past week, daily reported covid-19 cases rose 66 percent, covid-related hospitalizations rose 28 percent, and daily reported covid-19 deaths rose 20 percent. With the delta variant spreading across the country, every single state has seen an increase in cases over the past seven days.

This is a preventable tragedy. Over 99 percent of covid-19 deaths in June were among the unvaccinated. Yet even as evidence grows that vaccines are safe and effective, resistance to them is also growing. A recent Post-ABC News poll found that 29 percent of Americans said they were unlikely to get vaccinated — up from 24 percent three months earlier. Only 59 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.

Translation: “individual interests would be subordinated to the good of the nation.”

Persuasion, something one would think an OpEd columnist would favor, does not seem to be something Mr Boot accepts, at least not if some people don’t agree with him:

This is madness. Stop making reasonable appeals to those who will not listen to reason. (According to an Economist/YouGov poll, a majority of those who refuse to get vaccinated say vaccines are being used by the government to implant microchips.) It’s a waste of time. Start mandating that anyone who wants to travel on an airplane, train or bus, attend a concert or movie, eat at a restaurant, shop at a store, work in an office or visit any other indoor space show proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test.

We must show proof of vaccination or a negative test? Wir müssen Ihre Dokumente sehen!

Boy, it sure is a good thing Mr Boot does not use the term “fascist” loosely or often!

One would think that the son of Russian Jews, who fled oppression in the Soviet Union in 1976, when the iron-fisted Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev ruled, would understand the need for individual liberty. but, again, if one thought that, he would be wrong.

For months, Republicans have been caterwauling about vaccine passports, even obscenely comparing them to the Holocaust. All this sturm und drang obscures the fact there has been far too little use made of vaccine passports. I downloaded a New York state app on my iPhone months ago to verify that I’m vaccinated, but I’ve never once had to show it. Instead, many stores have signs saying that vaccinated people don’t need to wear masks — but they don’t verify vaccination. That provides no incentive to get your shots. Los Angeles County is also treating vaccinated and unvaccinated alike by again requiring masks for everyone. Why not just mandate proof of vaccination or a negative test

If New York state provides an app to certify that someone has had the vaccines, and Mr Boot has voluntarily chosen to use that, hey, that’s great, and an exercise of his individual liberty.

Sturm und drang, huh? The expression refers to an artistic movement in the late 18th century, characterized by the expression of emotional unrest and a rejection of neoclassical literary norms. To use this expression, the esteemed Mr Boot is telling us just what he thinks of individual thought.

Or at least it would if the distinguished columnist for The Washington Post actually understood the meaning of the term he used, a fact not in evidence.

In the United States, the authority of state governments to mandate vaccinations is clear — it goes all the way back to a 1905 Supreme Court case that upheld a Massachusetts law requiring vaccinations for smallpox. More recently, governors have used their public health powers to mandate mask-wearing and social distancing to fight covid-19. They ought to now take the logical next step and mandate vaccinations for the use of indoor spaces outside the home.

Except, of course, the public have rebelled. In the Bluegrass State, Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) mask mandate was so hated that when Republican candidates ran on the platform of ending his dictatorial powers in November of 2020, the voters rewarded GOP candidates with 14 additional seats, increasing the Republicans’ state House majority to 75-25.[1]The state House districts were set, following the 2010 census, by a House which was then controlled by Democrats. Mr Boot has been all about democracy, in his condemnation of President Trump and his vociferous insistence on supporting Joe Biden, but it seems that when the will of the people isn’t what he thinks it should be, democracy isn’t that great a thing anymore.

The distinguished Mr Boot suggested that President Biden should mandate vaccinations (not just negative COVID-19 tests) for:

  • Airline travel;
  • Amtrak travel;
  • All federal employees;
  • Everyone who enters a federal building (which would include a post office)[2]We have a post office box because the United States Postal Service will not deliver to our house. I have no idea how many people living out in the sticks as we do have the same problem, but Mr Boot … Continue reading; and
  • Order all military personnel to be vaccinated.

Mr Boot wants President Biden to use his authority to order people to get vaccinated, but he said that it was President Trump who was the fascist! And remember: it isn’t a term he uses loosely, or often!

Granted, there are limits to the United States’ ability to mandate vaccines because many red-state governors are unlikely to go along. But even Republicans want to fly on airplanes and visit blue states such as California, Hawaii, Nevada and New York. Vaccine mandates will prove controversial, to put it mildly, but, like seat belt laws, drunken driving laws and motorcycle helmet laws, they will save lives. We should not grant an unreasonable minority the power to endanger public health.

Good heavens! You know, people can get to California, Nevada and New York without flying. It’s not that long a drive for me to get to New York or New Jersey or Virginia. Perhaps Mr Boot thinks that the state police in those blue states should stop all travelers at the border, and demand to see their papers. Sound far fetched? In March of 2020, then Governor Gina Raimondo (D-CN) ordered the Rhode Island State Police to pull over drivers with New York plates so that National Guard officials can collect contact information and inform them of a mandatory, 14-day quarantine. She also ordered the state’s National Guard to go door-to-door in coastal communities to find out whether any of the home’s residents have recently arrived from New York and inform them of the quarantine order.

Ve need to see your papers!

For a man who does not use the term “fascist” loosely, or often, the esteemed Mr Boot sure seems unable to recognize just how much he wants to subject the rights of the individual to the police power of the state. Or, perhaps he actually does recognize it, but just doesn’t care, not as long as that police power is being used for something he thinks good.

References

References
↑1 The state House districts were set, following the 2010 census, by a House which was then controlled by Democrats.
↑2 We have a post office box because the United States Postal Service will not deliver to our house. I have no idea how many people living out in the sticks as we do have the same problem, but Mr Boot would require us to be vaccinated just to receive our mail.
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Kathleen Sebelius advocates authoritarian controls; the credentialed media try to ignore it to death

Kathleen Sebelius was Secretary of Health and Human Services during the previous Democratic administration, but it seems that she has taken her lessons not from Barack Hussein Obama but Xi Jinping. First, from The Wall Street Journal:

    Get Vaxxed or Stay Home, Some Local Chinese Governments Say

    Some areas are planning to restrict people from public venues unless they get shots, sparking criticism

    By Chao Deng | Updated: July 15, 2021 | 7:17 AM ET

    Several local governments in China are planning to bar residents who haven’t been vaccinated against Covid-19 from accessing public venues, stirring controversy as the country makes a push for herd immunity.

    In recent days, a dozen counties and cities in the eastern provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian and Jiangxi set late-August deadlines for people 18 years or older to complete a two-shot vaccine regimen, according to similarly worded online statements. Many of them also set dates in late July by which unvaccinated people would be barred from entering schools, libraries, prisons, nursing homes and inpatient facilities at hospitals without a valid medical exemption.

    Some of the localities attributed their new policies to “national, provincial and municipal arrangements,” without explaining whether they received a decree from the central government.

    China is dealing with sporadic outbreaks of Covid-19 and authorities have been offering homegrown vaccines free of charge since last December.

    The government notices have sparked online pushback from some Chinese and triggered a debate—as in the U.S. and elsewhere—about whether people should be required to present proof of inoculation to travel, work or undertake other routine activities outside their home.

There’s more at the original.

Mrs Sebelius, previously the Governor of Kansas, apparently loves the way the Chinese Communists do things. From Breitbart, via The Pirate’s Cove:

Mrs Sebelius stated:

    Sebelius said, “We’re in a situation where we have a wildly effective vaccine, multiple choices, lots available, free of charge, and we have folks who are just saying I won’t do it. I think that it’s time to say to those folks, it’s fine if you don’t choose to get vaccinated. You may not come to work. You may not have access to a situation where you’re going to put my grandchildren in jeopardy. Where you might kill them, or you might put them in a situation where they’re going to carry the virus to someone in a high-risk position.”

    That’s, I think the point where we are, is freedom is one thing, but freedom when you harm others like secondhand smoke and issues that we’ve dealt with very clearly in the past you can’t drive drunk. You can drink, but you can’t drive drunk because you can injure other people. You can’t smoke inside of a public place where you can give cancer to someone else in spite of their never having been a smoker.

    So I think we’re reaching that point in the United States where those of us who are vaccinated, I want to take off my mask. I want to be able to live my life with vaccination, and right now, I’m being impinged on by people who say I don’t want to get vaccinated. It’s fine. I want them to maybe have a limitation on where they can go and who they can possibly infect.

You know what’s interesting? Breitbart is a definitely conservative site, and I like to cite liberal sources to prevent complaints by the left that my sources are biased, so I made a Google search for Mrs Sebelius’ first sentence. As you can see from the screen capture at the right, on which you can click to enlarge to make it more readable, all I found were conservative sources and individual blogs. Given that Breitbart had a video of the interview embedded, one which has two annoying commercials in it and one I cannot embed, the story is confirmed, but, oddly enough, the credentialed media seem loath to report it. Site searches for Sebelius on The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Philadelphia Inquirer yielded zero returns of this. Even a site search of CNN, where the interview was broadcast, yielded only one article, Young children will pay the price if enough US adults don’t get vaccinated against Covid-19, expert says, in which Mrs Sebelius’ statement is buried down in the 19th paragraph.

The credentialed media absotively, posilutely do not want such a totalitarian statement from a former Secretary of Health and Human Services to get much publicity, and so the story is being quietly buried, quietly ignored to death. Such is apparently not news that is fit to print! But we can be certain of one thing: if President Biden proposed such a thing, the left would certainly go along with it, because the left love them some totalitarian controls!

“Democracy Dies in Darkness,” The Washington Post has as its masthead tagline. Yet it seems that a former Democratic Secretary of Health and Human Services’ advocacy of authoritarian controls is news the editors of the Post want to keep in darkness.

It’s interesting that the Wikipedia biography for Mrs Sebelius states, “She is strongly pro-choice,” but it seems that, like so many others on the left, she is pro-choice on exactly one thing.

It should be noted that I am, and have previously stated, that I have been vaccinated against COVID-19. That was my personal choice, a choice I took freely, and my decision is the one I think others should take. But I also believe that people have the right to decide that for themselves, and that the government ought not to have any authority to penalize or punish them if they choose differently than I have.

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The politics of the #COVID19 vaccines have always been more important than the science Today's left have no tolerance for divergent views

I am not an #AntiVaxxer by any means, and I have had both doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. But I also do not dismiss the concerns of those who are skeptical, especially given that we have no information on any long term effects, because the vaccines haven’t even been around for a year yet.

The left try to dismiss such concerns as simply those of the uneducated, or as the lovely Amanda Marcotte tried to do, blame it on Republicans.

But when The Wall Street Journal starts to take notice of vaccine side effects, it’s no longer just the evil reich wing Republicans:

Continue reading →

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The left are pro-choice on exactly one thing (Part 2)

@Jenn_Pastrak is a proud Canadian, and says so on Twitter! She is so proud of her positions that, when she got into a Twitter debate with @FreckledLiberty, and started losing it — rather spectacularly, I might add — she wound up blocking her opponent:

Freckled Liberty is an online libertarian, a Jew —oh noes! — and, well here’s her Twitter bio:

Well, Miss Pastrak revealed to the world the difference between Canadians and Americans:

And thus we have it: Americans value freedom and liberty and our constitutional rights; Canadians, or at least Miss Pastrak, values the collective over the individual. That’s why freedom of speech in Canada is not protected, why you can be criminally liable if you say something which hurts someone else’s precious little feelings, why Canadians have no individual rights to not go along with the hive mind. She had the nerve to tweet “anti-vaxxers shouldn’t reproduce,” yet got her precious little feelings hurt when there was was some actual blowback on that. A former American President once said something about staying out of the kitchen if you can’t stand the heat, but I suppose that wouldn’t mean anything to a Canadian, would it? Then again, we have our own Special Snowflakes™ like Amanda Marcotte, perfectly willing to stir up some [insert slang term for feces here], but very ready to block anyone who disagrees with her.

Miss Pastrak did not resist, and she has been assimilated. What is amazing, though, is that she admits it. As an American, I’d be ashamed to admit something like that, but then, as an American, I am used to having my rights, and exercising them. Miss Pastrak would apparently have been right at home in the Soviet Union, where the collective, as defined by the General Secretary of the Communist Party, always trumped the individual. She would have been right there, were she the right age, celebrating sending Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Anatoli Sharanskii to the GULag.