We Need Pandemic Accountability, Not “Pandemic Amnesty”
Emily Oster’s article misses all three “R” requirements of meaningful forgiveness: Remorse, Repair, and Not Repeating.
The Atlantic published a piece titled “Let’s Declared a Pandemic Amnesty.” It was authored by Emily Oster, Professor of Economics and International and Public Affairs at Brown University, who wants forgiveness between “one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID.”
To say the response was an exceedingly robust rejection of her plea would be an understatement.
Perhaps this is the best take, underscoring that if we forgot everything that has happened since February 2020, is that such amnesty would be “toxic forgiveness.”
(LANGUAGE WARNING)
This video is in response to the @TheAtlantic article about “pandemic amnesty” and it’s a much watch. This man is so right on. pic.twitter.com/ZuuA9tIloD
— Just Mindy 🐊 (@just_mindy) October 31, 2022
After watching this video, I was reminded of the “Three R’s” of forgiveness promoted by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, talk show host, and author. She was one of my must-listen-to hosts in the early 1990s until she was cancel-cultured because gay activists decided to distort some of her statements.
The approach Schlessinger offered to avoid “toxic forgiveness” involved Remorse (expressing real regret), Repair (taking action to fix the consequences of behavior), and Not Repeating the action.
Let’s look at the current state of pandemic dynamics and what we have for each of the R’s.
REMORSE
The only remorse I can sense is the panic of the progressive activists as they see the scale of the retribution for the over two years of bureaucratic bullying and media misinformation that Americans have been treated to. Being sorry for receiving the just punishment to which you are due is NOT remorse.
Real remorse in this instance would be Big Pharma executives issuing heartfelt apologies for asserting the vaccine would stop infection. True regret would be the journalists and entertainers who mocked those who challenged their assertions (correctly), confessing how wrong they were in a sincere manner. Believable contrition would be bureaucrats from all aspects of government that pushed stringent pandemic policies jettisoning any of the current practices related to controlling people…including vaccine mandates.
1. The reaction to C19 wasn't always or even frequently driven by science or caution. It was often driven by politics and payback. People were hurt physically, financially, & emotionally and when they tried to pushback, they were demonized, attacked, & punished. https://t.co/OI3yWo4kfO
— Fusilli Spock (@awstar11) November 1, 2022
REPAIR
The next phase, repair, is certainly challenging.
How do you bring back the seniors who were consolidated into hospitals, where the more robust, early version of the virus was allowed to spread and claim so many lives?
How do you give back the missed birthday parties, weddings, graduations, and other life celebrations that were canceled in an attempt to contain the uncontainable virus?
How do you restore the reputation and accounts of epidemiologists, medical doctors, and other biological safety professionals who challenged many of the assertions being made in the press…but who were subsequently canceled because they went against the preferred narrative of the day?
How do you recover the careers of those fired for not getting vaccinated or the education of those prohibited from attending schools and universities for not getting the injection?
How do people reclaim the consolation of religious services missed in the quest to “stop the spread”?
How do you return lost developmental and learning progress to children after they were hindered by ineffective rules that were often retained despite not stopping the virus and only harmed the kids?
Finally, if research and evidence eventually prove that the vaccines have caused severe cardiac effects in young people and other significant, adverse health effects in healthy adults (who might have weathered covid infections with monitored symptoms), how are those lives restored?
The people who did this want “pandemic amnesty” now. Hard no pic.twitter.com/5AGg2XrMlb
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 1, 2022
Some damage is just too devastating that repair is not possible. One little article in “The Atlantic” doesn’t count.
Not Repeating
Of the three factors meaning forgiveness, this is the one I most doubt can ever be achieved.
Can promises made by the current politicians, bureaucrats, and elite media not to repeat the fear-mongering, power-grabbing, liberty-crushing antics really be trusted? I think not, as their sorrow will not be because of what they have done but because they may no longer have the power or influence to do so again.
In conclusion, the only rational response to Oster’s article is to “Just Say No” and to vote on Nov. 8th accordingly.
Those who were responsible for the pandemic travesty need to be held accountable. Anything less is toxic forgiveness.
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Comments
oh this is a GREAT article. Thank you for covering this stupid request in such a thoughtful and logical manner.
Also, I would recommend this one here: https://notthebee.com/article/jesse-kelly-started-a-thread-on-horrible-stories-related-to-covid-restrictions-and-the-replies-are-truly-heartbreaking
how can you not cry.
Thank you, Leslie. Well timed article for me.
I’m not USMC nor of that caliber, but damn if this article doesn’t make me wanna shout OORAH!
She spills the beans calling for amnesty, for you can’t have forgiveness without sin.
I’ll second that. It was an excellent article. Thank you.
The best response I have seen to this inane piece brought to us by The Atlantic and Brown University (what a shocker) comes from Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Matthew J. Peterson (@docMJP) as follows:
“Hey—sorry you lost your job b/c of the vax that doesn’t work and your grandmother died alone and you couldn’t have a funeral and your brother’s business was needlessly destroyed and your kids have weird heart problems—but let’s just admit we were all wrong and call a truce, eh?
It’s too bad we shut the entire economy down & took on tyrannical powers that have never been used before in this country—looking back, you should have been able to go to church and use public parks while we let people riot in the streets—but it was a confusing time for everyone.
Hey I’m sorry we scared the hell out of you & lied for years & persecuted & censored anyone who disagreed but there was an election going on & we really wanted to beat Donald Trump so it was important to radically politicize the science even if it destroyed your children’s lives.
OK, yes we said unvaccinated people should die & not get healthcare while never questioning Big Pharma once but we are compassionate people which is why even though we shut down the entire economy we also bankrupted the nation & caused inflation. You’re welcome! Let’s be friends.”
The words: “I’m sorry” do not appear in her statement.
That is only because she is not sorry. None of them are. They have learned nothing and would do the exact same thing again in a heart beat. The article doesn’t even acknowledge the outright lies. It also minimizes the abuse perpetrated on anyone that didn’t just fall into line.
Reich’s Professor Emily Oster during COVID:
“Get on the train or we will shoot you in the back of the head and let you die in a pit in the forest.”
Emily Liar afraid of the upcoming Nuremberg trials:
“We were just following orders.”
But hey, we had some great tic-tok videos of dancing nurses so we’re all good, amirite?
Sure, we destroyed your small business. Your Mother died alone in a locked down retirement home. Your sister lost her job at the hospital because she wouldn’t take the shot. Plus, your kids cannot read and have heart problems.
But, hey.. Bygones.
Yeah, it’s all good bro! You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet, amirite?
Unfortunately, people who say that never provide even scrambled eggs much less omelets. They do however enjoy stomping eggs into the dirt.
Oh! And if you’re white, you’ve got it coming. “Social Justice,” and all…
In other words, the collective left is experiencing a huge case of “Oh Shit”
“Real remorse in this instance would be Big Pharma executives issuing heartfelt apologies for asserting the vaccine would stop infection.”
Big Pharma was and continues to be a key component to this hoax and made billions of dollars. And I just now heard yet another PSA by Dr. Sanjay Gupta pushing the new booster shots.
We need a Nuremberg-style investigation and trial for the hundreds of “experts” who perpetuated this hoax, especially those who made the decisions who killed millions of people and damaged the hearts of every person who took their jabs.
This phase is only beginning. There will be hell to pay down the road and I can’t wait. This ruined so many of my relationships and it helps that I was right from the very beginning to not get vaxxed. But I am absolutely certain that there will be no apologies heading my way for being demonized and ostracized for 3 years. I have lost much of my confidence in the basic good of people. I feel like I am surrounded by zombies.
I am glad that I didn’t hide my feelings about the poison poke. I now have a much better idea who my true friends are and who I can trust.
I am glad that I didn’t hide my feelings about the poison poke. I now have a much better idea who my true friends are and who I can trust.
____________________________________________________________
exactly–had numerous business associates / colleagues and even a couple of medicine men / women in my own family harangue me constantly about ” risking my life while a vaccine was readily available, etc ” –though their tune is somewhat diffent now, their self-important righteousness has diminished very little–and NOT ONE of them has said to me ” well, we were wrong “–meanwhile, we continue to live our lives
if there was any benefit at all from the virus nonsense, it gave us a glimpse of just how ruthless, how determined, how deceitful, how corrupt many of our “elected” officials can truly be
There will need to be an actual revolution before there is a real Nuremburg trial for these bastards, as the bastards control all the levers of power.
Let’s be real. Trump is the one who fast tracked the death jab and he is still proud of it. There are not more than one or two or three asshats in all of congress who will say the jab is bad. They just oppose mandating it.
Trump fast-tracked vaccines. Big Pharma delivered poison disguised as vaccines. That’s not Trump’s fault. The regulatory apparatus still had functions to conduct, which they turned into rubber stamps.
It’s easy now to blame him for taking action. But he would have been condemned for not fast-tracking vaccines. So he did what was expected, and Big Pharma took advantage. Trump was certainly expecting a “safe and effective” vaccine to result. The blame is on those people who knew the results weren’t “safe and effective”, yet promoted and insisted upon them (and all the useless mitigation efforts) in spite of knowing they were dangerous.
Agree with all of the above. There is almost nothing that can be done to repair, but for the “not repeating” bit, we need a national movement to revise and severely limit these so-called emergency powers statutes. In the moment when civil rights are being trampled by power-intoxicated politicians and bureaucrats, the courts are too slow, and the legislatures are too afraid to rein them in. Governors having the unilateral power to unilaterally extend their unilateral powers time-after-time is tyranny, not government of the people. I don’t see any Republicans talking about this.
If the high level people involved would resign from their positions and live out their live in obscurity that would be a start. It would probably go a ways towards not repeating as well.
No, they don’t need that option. The tyrants should be tried, then executed as an example to any other who would consider such things.
Fraudchi should be the first to swing from the gallows.
I like the Japanese honor model. They would resign and kill themselves.
That doesn’t work for people who have no honor.
Not sure about that Let’s try it…after they resign and kill themselves, I’ll let you know if I’m satisfied.
Yes, the people who were responsible for using their positions of power to do damage must now use their power to advance and support meaningful legislation to limit emergency powers, guarantee bodily autonomy, reject censorship of discussions of all subjects of public interest, etc. Such action on their part might also be considered part of the “repair” phase as well, as a prophylactic against future damage.
Several years back, Jordan Peterson presented the Insane Link between Infectious Disease and Authoritarian Tendencies. This was back before we all saw it unfold in our Republic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO6VfFqvRkM
Note the Left’s use of “cleansing” the country by getting rid of the Right. Anyone not Left was a disease to be purged from the body politic and in general removed. Peterson mentions “contempt” and “disgust” as motivators. Where have we seen those? “Live and let live” is now “live and let die”.
Then: I hope you catch Covid and die. They should withhold treatment from you. You want to kill other people so they should let you die.
Now: Ooops. Honest mistake. Friends again?
Answer: When hell freezes over.
Oster is skipping some steps here and confusing amnesty with forgiveness and absolution.
What precisely does she want forgiveness for? Let her and the other Branch Covidians elocute their offenses. No waffling or claims of good intentions just a recitation of the things they did and the timeline when they occurred.
Then we can compare the acts on the timeline with information available at the time to determine whether those acts were made based in ignorance and fear or whether they were borne out of malice. That is a crucial distinction because the severity of the penance to be imposed is based upon the motivation.
After confession comes genuine repentance. Those responsible must agree that these actions can’t be repeated. They must resign their positions. They must actively support and demand reforms to our laws and systems to preclude emergency powers being invoked and sustained in excess of 15 days by the executive, a renewal of 30 days by the legislature and a plebiscite for further extensions of 90 day increments.
Next every individual who misused their office or position both public or private must accept voluntary professional exile for a period of five years. They can then be allowed to begin the journey to restore their reputation. During the exile they must accept that the damage they did by supporting and championing false information re masks, vax efficacy, vax safety, social distancing and mandates has a price. Part of that price is voluntary acceptance of removal from public discourse on social media, traditional media and publication.
If the Branch Covidians want absolution they can do these things. An amnesty is not flipping happening not now not ever.
Yes! That was exactly my take, what, exactly, is she asking for amnesty for? It wasn’t just being wrong about cloth masks, or closing beaches or schools that people want justice for, that much is certain.
Agree, but their exile should be in prison.
Forget the amnesty BS. We want action, not platitudes.
I absolutely agree with your Emergency Powers suggestions and have written my representatives to demand action on them.
It somehow goes completely over most people’s heads that the draconian actions of the left originated with those magic words “State of Emergency” which so easily overcame constitution and law but are not limited or defined.
Action needs to be taken immediately to:
1. END the current supposed State of Emergency (yeah, Biden keeps extending it even though any legitimate crisis is long since over but he loves not having to obey the law).
2. Time limit any future declarations of such states of emergency.
3. Mandatory legislative review and up/down vote after 14 days.
“I absolutely agree with your Emergency Powers suggestions and have written my representatives to demand action on them.”
Step back a moment, this is entirely the wrong thing to do.
The last thing you want to do is write laws to enshrine protocols for emergency powers that your government probably never had the authority to assume in the first place.
NO part of the US constitution authorizes the powers that the feds assumed during the pandemic. NONE.
NO part of our (AZ) state constitution authorizes them, either.
Our governor is authorized to assume emergency powers only over other portions of the government… and only to assure their continuity through a disaster.
Our governor has NO direct authority over the citizens, and neither does the US president. That power is reserved to the legislature, who makes laws. Executives do not make laws, not even those who are divinely appointed enough to get free daily ice cream.
Is your state different? I can’t say, but that’s where you need to start looking FIRST, before you go writing laws to “trim” (and thereby unwittingly condoning) powers that don’t exist in the first place.
Perhaps I missed the part where whatever you are recommending actually stopped abuse of the “State of Emergency” declaration?
I mean we can shout at the top of our lungs all day long that it doesn’t exist (in fact we did), but it plainly does as we have been under one for two years plus now.
So we have three choices:
– Keep yelling at the sky at how unjust it is
– Acknowledge it exists whether we like it or not and put harsh limitations on it
– Formally ban it
There’s another option you didn’t mention and that is to try, convict and execute those who unlawfully used emergency powers that were not allowed by the Constitution.
Damn skippy you missed it.
I highly recommend you find yourself a copy of Harry Browne’s “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.” His premise is that you shouldn’t wait for your state or your country to “get free” to claim your freedom. You live free despite those who would stop you. There is no other way.
That’s what the people here in Wickenburg did. When the cops showed up and told them they had to close their businesses, they said no. They called the cops’ bluff. Then they called the mayor’s bluff. Then they called the county attorney’s bluff. And the bastards backed down.
Three restaurateurs. One Mexican immigrant. One Lebanese immigrant. One homegrown cowgirl. They actually insisted on their human and constitutional rights… imagine that! And they won.
And now they hold weekly training sessions for the townspeople on the US and state constitutions at one of those restaurants, after hours. And attendance grows every week.
And then in Sun City.
And then in Buckeye, Peoria, Prescott, Cottonwood…
You’re not seeing these successes in your area? Wonder what you could do about that. There are organizations like CSPOA that could help you make it happen, as they did for the restaurant owners of Wickenburg.
@henrybowman: That is why Prescott is on the top of my list of places I am considering moving too. Could be soon. Too many moving parts.
Uh, no. The next option in line is called civil disobedience: just say no. Many of us did just that. I’m in Alabama and, while the guv issued mask mandates, no one enforced them. I’m pretty sure she knew this and didn’t press the point. Issuing the mandate kept the state in good graces on the federal scale; not enforcing them will get her reelected next Tuesday.
Pretty clever, I thought.
On a roving local level, there were plenty times I went maskless while most were still wearing them. No one ever approached me about it. I’m a little old guy, but I suspect I radiate a “don’t fuck with me” aura.
Henry,
The real problem is that the Governors of most States already have the authority to invoke emergency powers/authority. Unfortunately we now have a class of politicians who are power hungry and lack the moral and ethical foundation to exercise restraint. Just as John Adams explained ‘our Republic was made for moral men’.
The establishment of very clear, bright line rules for invoking emergency powers, their fixed duration and means of extension has been shown to be very necessary during Rona. I wish we had honorable people who wouldn’t seek to abuse their authority but we clearly do not have them.
Each State Constitution differs a bit and AZ may have had a different experience than MI because of that. Obviously it would be better if every State had strict limits. Most do not and several power hunger partisan politicians acted out of malicious spite to abuse their power.
It may be true, or you may be assuming facts not in evidence.
My CSPOA contact, whose business it is to do this, claims that he has had to study eight state constitutions in depth (admittedly all western) in the course of his advocacy, and found not a single one whose emergency powers granted to the governor gave him any authority over anything but other government offices and personnel, and then solely in order to ensure the continuation of government services. Appoint to vacancies, assign security, redistribute budgets, call employees in to work, authorize emergency responses, that sort of thing. My question is, have you assured yourself that your governor, county commissioners, etc. have any power beyond this (granted by the constitution, not bullshit legislation with no valid authority under the constitution), or are you just assuming they do because they assume they do?
One consequence that the Wickenburg hot potato had is that the various functionaries who got burned touching it had their noses rubbed in this very fact, and are not familiar with limitations they never understood existed. If something like this hits the fan again, at least in the near future, I predict you will not be seeing much in the way of “emergency declarations” from the governor of Arizona next time.
Damn edit button… “and are NOW familiar with limitations…”
Even after facts were available, the Covidians refused to acknowledge them. They fixated on the state of knowledge as it existed in late 2019/early 2020, and absolutely would not recognize the evolving science, while lying to the public about “following the science.” They can’t be forgiven for “not knowing”, because knowledge was available to them, and they refused to even access it. Some of them suppressed it to prevent others from accessing it. In some situations, they possessed the knowledge, and refused to submit it to public and scientific review. They actively encouraged ignorance in others by denying them access to information. A timetable won’t absolve any of them of anything.
No. Hell no.
Nuremberg 2 would be a good start.
Not to mention the various “camp” trials that took place as well.
I genuinely hate these people. I know I shouldn’t, but I do. What they did to people is simply unforgivable. Read through that Jesse Kelly thread linked above and let it sink in what they did and what we collectively let happen.
Everyone has a story. My wife’s aunt died alone on a ventilator almost 2 years ago. She was an amazing and hilarious woman, wife and mom. She and her family were dehumanized in the end for what? Nothing.
Amnesty? F you.
I’ve worked for defense contractors for many years. Had a good job, making good money, working with people I like. The vax mandate for contractors (still in place btw) ended that job. I landed on my feet, but lost $1,000 a month in pay and any feeling of job security. My children all took the jab and I worry when the adverse symptoms will start. My father passed and I couldn’t be with him. There is so much more, I couldn’t possibly list it all.
I am not hearing any apology, just a statement that we were all wrong.
No, we were not all wrong. There were many voices speaking truth. They were ignored, censored, canceled, libeled. They were labeled as kooks, as liars, as domestic terrorists, as deniers, as heartless killers. I have heard no apologies, no pleas for forgiveness, no admissions of guilt. The woman who yelled “I hope you die!” At my wife has not come forward to beg forgiveness. I don’t expect her to.
There is much to heal, that is true. But healing does not begin with the battered victims lifting themselves off the ground and singing Kum Ba Yah to their smugly complacent assailants.
No. Just no.
“No, we were not all wrong. There were many voices speaking truth. They were ignored, censored, canceled, libeled.”
And punished for being correct.
I’m not in a forgiving and forgetting mood.
Amnesty? I’d much prefer that these loathsome people be ostracized, persecuted and some prosecuted.
POUND SAND A-HOLES.
Considering how serious the outcome could have been for my family if I had been unable to step in to protect my son, my niece, and my sister, as well as how we would have lost one of my cousins to a ventilator if her husband had not insisted that the hospital treat his wife for a co-infection, I am in no way inclined to allow the perpetrators of this massacre to continue to run loose because one of them chooses to plead ignorance. As a society, they engaged in, at best, willful ignorance, malice and recklessness.
One step toward an eventual reconciliation in a few years would be to carefully examine the role of censorship of prominent, respected scientists played in this debacle. Here’s an early study.
Censorship and Suppression of Covid-19 Heterodoxy: Tactics and Counter-Tactics
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11024-022-09479-4
https://archive.ph/07JnP
We are Americans. We have never censored our independent problem-solvers, until now. We need to know how that happened, so that we can avoid such a catastrophe in the future.
Valerie, I can tell how those people censored our independent problem solvers. The problem solvers got in the way of a forceful overhaul of our relationship to our government. We were expected to surrender our freedoms for a false sense of security and protection. This was a test to see how much we were willing to concede and how fast. Many fell for it. But those who didn’t were trashed as artfully stated by many of the commentators on this thread.
The result was extraordinary for the tyrants. They demanded control. They got compliance from many. They demanded public and private persecution against those who stood their ground. The tyrants had neighbors, friends, and families reporting on “the deniers.”
People lost their jobs, their business, their family members. All for a hoax.
We won’t be able to avoid it in the future. How do I know? Because so far, no one has been punished. No one has lost their job or their life for the lies.
So the next time will be more forceful, and the people who won’t play will be attacked by those who demand compliance.
We will then have to make a decision. Surrender or fight.
I have a family members who is still (as of last week) repeating the mantra “I have to assume that anyone not wearing a mask wants to kill me.” STILL!! But then, that branch of the family watches CNN, and spends their online hours in leftist echo chambers. So, she’s not alone in this rabid persistence. Rational people cannot combat that level of insanity.
I watch people walking alone on the streets of a nearby college town wearing a cloth mask. Alone. No one nearer that 20 feet. The people in the 20 feet range are in cars.
These people are almost exclusively college age women.
I am afraid that we are doomed.
Saw the same in Oberlin a few months ago. Shameful.
I sometimes see people in my area wear them. Most of them are older, but a good portion of them are minorities.
So shell shocked by the fear porn, they can’t seem to get themselves out of the mindset.
This whole thing has undoubtedly caused more OCD issues than anything.
It does make it easier to spot a moron though, without even engaging with them, which is nice.
Masks, face tats, piercings, gauges, haircolors not found in nature… we almost have to thank them for making it easier on us than past generations did.
Buy those family members copies of “The Atlantic” with Oster’s article. They will see an admission of wrongdoing penned by one of their own, published by a source they trust. It might pry open their minds a bit.
Yea, can we all just get along?
The answer has been proven in the last few years that no, we can’t.
No.
Amnesty?
We need Nuremberg 2.0 followed by firing squads.
One very good example that illustrates failure on all 3 of the Rs is Eric Adams. He is refusing to reinstate city employees that were fired for not taking the jab, in defiance of an order from the state supreme court.
I’m so old, I can remember when conservatives (including Tucker) were mumbling about Eric Adams being “a Democrat we could work with.”
Boy, is the bloom off THAT oleander.
Most, I remember, were in wait and see mode. But, Adams sounded fairly reasonable compared to the fascist he replaced … Reichsfuhrer Wilhelm.
He’s what New Yorkers wanted. They got him. He’s their problem, not ours.there’s no law that says they have to live in NYC. People have been known to vote with their feet. Being a wandering Jew, I did, and more than once. It’s admittedly a pain in the ass to move, but it’s more painful to stay where things are bad.
Thank you Leslie for this.. but something was left out in the Repair section.
My dear nephew told me that he and his wife spent time looking for some kind of antidote to the covid-vaccine.. He mentioned some of the technicalities.. but he said there is no fixing what that shot does to you. Nope. There is no antidote. It broke my heart. He is a good young man.. I want him to to live a long and happy life.. but now I worry.
My own conclusion was that you can always take the shot, but you can never un-take it. And it’s been decades since I changed my middle name from “early adopter” to “keep your options open.”
Have they (each individually) asked for FORGIVENESS?
Have they confessed WHAT they are seeking FORGIVENESS for? Specifically?
Have they been assessed a PENALTY for their actions that we can COMMUTE or PARDON?
Until we have full knowledge of their bad acts, how can we learn from and understand what we are forgiving?
Especially to know what not to allow them to commit the act again.
LOL. Bring Tony “The Science” Fauci out and he will tell you that even his acknowledged lies were the right thing to do and he will do it again.
Actually, about a month or two ago, he stated publicly that, in retrospect, he should have insisted on more severe restrictions and lockdowns. He’s sorry he didn’t push for more extreme measures.
At this point, he’s pretty much relegated to the “where are they now?” departments. Has he retired? It will be interesting to hear him defend his illegal policies when asked about them by a rational Congress. Making false statements to Congress is a felony.
… A felony, which nobody on the Left will be charged with nor punished for. Just ask former AG Eric Holder
“Have they confessed WHAT they are seeking FORGIVENESS for?”
Yeah.
“…getting something wrong wasn’t a moral failing.”
You get that? Their failing was merely “getting something wrong.”
Not for using political and social force to destroy your jobs, businesses, relationships, mobility, free speech, worship, choice, mobility, safety, and reputation… entirely on the basis of “what they got wrong.”
Fuck them. Fuck them all.
Personally impoverish every one of those bastards for a reparations fund.
Even though I disagreed at the start and thought it was the wrong policy, I can understand the fear that existed in the first couple of months, and can understand the required mitigation protocols that were put in place early.
That being said, within a few months it became very obvious the mitigation protocols were counter productive and were actually inhibiting the achievement of the only viable long term solution which was developing immunity through the general population. I am also only addressing it counter productivity strictly from a pandemic / medical point of view.
As many others have pointed out, there were also tremendous economic and educational losses that cant be recovered.
You are right about the first couple of months. However, had Trump followed what I think were his instincts, to reopen – and it is tough to fault him in a highly scientific situation – we would have been far better off and he probably would have been re-elected. So …. are they going to apologize for Trump’s defeat? Ha!
Concur
What surprised me , was the high frequency of individuals that I have known 10-20+ years that I thought were rational and knowledgable about basic science, common sense, etc, that 10-12 months were still advocating masking, social distancing, etc, & not wanting to kill grandma.
Granted, I was one of the first persons, that recognized that the only long term solution was developing immunity through out the population (just like all prior pandemics) and the mitigation protocols were never going to work. As early as March 2020, covid was too deeply embedded into the population to stop via any mitigation protocols.
There will be real Justice and reconciliation when Anthony Fauci is forced to relinquish his $10 million retirement package – and Pfizer, Moderna and J&J are forced to relinquish any and all profits for the next twenty years, as part of a trillion-dollar compensation settlement for the families of those who died from COVID or the effects of the vaccines.
It would be great to see all those who pushed this authoritarianism be stripped off all their jobs, licenses, etc and force them to work the menial jobs they forced upon those whose businesses, their lives’ work, crumbled into nothingness; those whose mental health took a dive for the worst; those whose children lost or delayed cognitive skills because of endless masking and social distancing; those whose children lost opportunities and hope because of the virus or the vaccine, and those whose children committed suicide.
It would be fantastic if those who pushed “mail-in” ballots because of the virus, those who forced the elderly precinct workers because of it and filled them with activists, and all those who hyped the fear so much they brought the wolves into the electoral henhouses, were forced to live in the penury they condemned the rest of us to live now because of inflation, shortages and overall deindustrialization of the country, just because the virus was the perfect excuse to bring catastrophe to the best economy in 50 years and bring down a Presidency because they hated the guy. And all that came afterward. Of course, the chance to “stop climate change” was too great to miss, so the virus did them a favor.
Frankly, I would like to see EVERY LAST ONE of those authoritarians be placed inside a domed town, locked from the outside, with the Ebola virus released into it. We could watch as they terrorize themselves to death.
Until then, no forgiveness, no forgetfulness. None.
Nah, they should not be force to live in an internment camp and forced to wear a face mask 24 x 7 for the next 6 months with coughing sounds over the intercom and forced to watch Alex Jones.
Sure, I’ll declare “amnesty”, once you’re gang beat by the “Truth and Reconciliation” mob.
We are being played
It’s like after a husband terrorizes a wife, then demands complete absolution. Why? Because “I may have gone too far, yes, but you aren’t perfect either.” And “Look, it was only because i care.”
We’re being broken down slowly. Inexorably. Eventually the “I don’t forgive nor forget” crowd will be labeled extremists un-Christian unreasonable etc
All to set the stage for the cycle to repeat.
– – – –
A lot of people don’t realize how NIH and FDA and CDC came about. After WWII, America’s GDP was greater than the rest of the countries on earth …. combined. We set about building things and curing things. Basic research was encouraged, and only the best and the brightest could get invited to work at NIH, for example. It cannot be overemphasized how prestigious and cutting edge it was to work at NIH. But since the 1980s, the funding for NIH research has shifted from public to private (Pharma). So fast forward to today and basically it’s just an open secret that Pharma calls the shots, so to speak.
Don’t believe me? Don’t have to. Just ask yourself:
1) why no well conducted studies on masks. distancing. etc
2) why no public debating Fauci, Pfizer, McCullough, Malone, Steve Kirsch, etc
The NIH and the FDA and the CDC used to be a bit quirky, but they were respected. Today they are just Public Relations departments under the overall supervision and control of Pharma.
– – –
When the NIH and the FDA and the CDC were first established it was inconceivable that the doctors employed there could be corrupted so thoroughly. En masse.
But here we are.
If you have trouble accepting the possibility of such complete mendacity amongst trained professionals entrusted with important responsibilities, ask yourself how the FBI handled the completely credible sexual assault allegations from US Olympic gymnasts.
It’s uncomfortable to accept some realities that stare us in the face.
I will forgive if you admit you were wrong.
As long as it is presented as we had to do what we did. We just were using the available information. Then no because they will do the same thing again.
They were wrong about how to react to the available information. They didn’t change as the information changed. They worked hard to call everyone that died for whatever reason a COVID death. They acted as if a 99.8% survival rate was a 50% death rate. They were stingy with the information and hid it because they knew better and you need to do as you are told.
Sadly, it would appear that the cover-up/clean-up is running apace.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/the-southeastern-conference-is-now
It’s hard to imagine a scenario going forward in which SEC athletes suffering from myocarditis and/or dropping dead … will lead to anyone in SouthEast Conference asking whether mRNA injections might have had anything to do with it.
Relevant meme — at a funeral: “He died of a sudden heart attack due to climate change. We’re grateful he was vaccinated, it could have been much worse.”
We already had well-conducted studies on masks, including a meta-study of fourteen medical studies of the effectiveness of masks on ILI’s (Influenza-like illnesses) where the bottom-line conclusion was that masks would, at best, have a negligible effect on spread of disease and otherwise would be harmful. That study was release in April, 2020.
The CDC had also released a study (in 2018, if I recall correctly) concerning the national response to a major pandemic. In it, they considered and rejected lockdowns as an option, being of limited to no use, and being legally questionable.
They knew from the beginning their mitigation efforts were theater. In part, it was politicians and bureaucrats who wanted to be seen as “doing something” rather than “doing nothing”, and wanting to prevent panic by giving people agency (by telling them there were useless things they could to to protect themselves and others). But in the long run, the power-hungry took over completely (e.g., the governors of several states and Anthony Fauci), and hijacked the entire operation. If it wasn’t political originally, it quickly became so, as political forces recognized opportunities to co-opt the pandemic for the advancement of their agenda, all of the science and the studies (already accepted and acknowledged) be damned.
We also need accountability for the border, crime, inflation, Afghanistan, what they are doing to children … to begin with.
I would be willing to meet them halfway on amnesty. If they ask nicely, I might be convinced to set the heater on the tar vat at the “tar & feathers” party to SIMMER rather than a rolling boil.
I only thing tar and feather is appropriate if we follow it up with a flamethrower and then a gatling mini-gun.
Just a redo of, “At this point, what difference does it make?”
The left will never accept responsibility; they live in perpetual adolescence.
Asking for amnesty is TEXTBOOK Consciousness Of Guilt.
As for giving amnesty? They can go to Hell.
These same jackasses tried to demand that you be fired and that you be forcibly held down and given the so-called ‘vaccine’. They called us murderers and conspiracy theorists.
They are absolutely TERRIFIED about being held accountable for their insanity.
Forgiveness, amnesty? Hell no. I want all of those people in jail for mass murder. They did everything on purpose including releasing the virus.
They did everything; destruction of the economy, needlessly scaring people including little children, forcing people apart, stopping people from gathering, shutting down business’s, forcing people to participate in a medical experiment, all for one reason and one reason only:
To Stop Donald Trump. To Stop Donald Trump.
They need to be in jail or on death row.
I could type a lot but everyone has said everything. All I can say is what I thought initially when I heard about this.
GFY
This comment cannot be upvoted enough times.
We need a second set of Nuremberg trials with the same sorts of penalties carried out on the guilty. Obviously, the tyrants didn’t learn from the first ones and didn’t bother listening when this was being pointed out.
Those that pushed this to its limits need to be punished… physically. Lesser fellow travelers should face financial ruin and deportation. For the professionals in medicine and law that pushed this… licenses revoked…permanently. The War is still not over folks…. it continues on and amnesty means nothing.
They behaved as if Covid was The Black Death Redux.
Even though they learned very quickly, by May/June of 2020 at the latest, that it wasn’t. Some knew is wasn’t from the start.
Yet they continued to treat it as if it was a deadly plague, feeding panicky gullible people and tyrannical hypochondriacs a daily dose of fear.
And they destroyed the best economy since the Reagan years.
Why did they do it? Power. The power they needed to do what they had to do to ‘fortify’ the election to first get rid of Trump. And then to take over and put in place a one-party system, finishing the ‘fundamental transformation’ Obama could not finish in his eight years.
It was a coup. And much of it was unconstitutional. And the GOPe did little or nothing to stop it. Because they hated Trump, too.
There can be no forgiving for this. There can be only an accounting, a reckoning, punishment, and systemic changes made so this can never happen again in America.
And if that is not done, or if it’s already too late, America will never again be a free nation. It will continue to become a nation ruled, without effective opposition, by oppressive radical leftwing fascist socialist tyrants. And, until they are no longer useful, their useful idiots.
Three other excellent reviews of this amnesty movement:
Dr. Panda
Eugyppius (one and two).
Eugyppius has interesting insights on how the pandemic misresponse was largely driven by “head girls” (of both sexes), and one commenter proposes that Oster was in all likelihood deliberately selected as the “face” of this amnesty because her personal contribution to the tyranny was relatively smaller than monsters like Leana Wen and Monica Gandhi.
This too was very good if not already mentioned
https://emilyburns.substack.com/p/with-whom-does-emily-oster-want-an?utm_medium=reader2
The three authors who wrote the Great Barrington Declaration in October of 2022 deserve the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
But of course, that would make too much sense for a group of clowns who handed their coveted Peace Prize to a president barely eight months in office, who then went on to wage six wars and 12 “conflicts.”
I believe that should be 2020, not 2022.
Ignorance of COVID in the early days only lasted until about April 2020. At that point enough was known about the scale and scope of the virus for informed public policy. Instead, the power-mongers of government, of the media, of pharma, of academia took the nation on a two-year mad drive of control. This was not done out of ignorance, not after April 2020. It was done out of gleeful malice and suppression.
The Almighty calls on me to forgive. He does not call on me to forget.
The Diamond Princess in February 2020 told us everything we needed to know. Obviously, no one was vaccinated. And hre’s the figures: Of the 3,711 people on board, 712 became infected with the virus – 567 of 2,666 passengers, and 145 of 1,045 crew.
There was a report in the last year of a cruise ship where 100% of the vaccinated crew and passengers tested positive for the dreaded covid. To me- that’s 100% prrof the vaccination is useless. Cruise ships still have the most stringent pre-boarding testing and vaccination requirements, and the dreaded covid is still reported on virtually 100% of all cruise ships before the end of a voyage,
They’re at it again, some more, still, with reporting on this season’s flu “emergency.” The Screaming-D’s solution is always the same:
‘This situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.” “And we’re just the guys to do it.”
and
“More Cowbell.”
They don’t get that those were both satire. Sad.
Not forgiving, not forgetting, absolute hard NO to just letting bygones be bygones! Too much damage, too many lives ruined, businesses destroyed to ever give the government and those in it who inflicted these policies on us a pass!
Scratch a and you will find a totalitarian under the surface.
In a certain aspect I am very grateful for the pandemic.
Everyone was exposed for what and who they truly are.
Don’t apologize and don’t expect forgiveness.
No forgiveness. These people would have thrown us into concentration camps do not deserve it. They will do it again if they get the chance.
Let’s not forget that “these people” but elsewhere — Australia in particular — did precisely that, with no hesitation.
Plus, I just can’t get past that face.
It’s the face of an authoritarian robot who answers every one of your completely logical and bulletproof arguments with “that does not compute.”
And when you think about it, that’s exactly what she did in real life.
The COVID virus did not affect 99.9% of people. Most of the people affected were above 60 years old and the death rate was very low. As the age got younger there was no affect.
Initial reports by various Doctors in all parts of the USA was that a combination of HQC+Ivermectin+Z-pack would stop the COVID virus quickly and cheaply. This was reported via the internet but was quickly blocked on the internet. The question is why was that blocked and who got the various internet providers to block it?
The COVID vaccines, which are actually “Emergency Drugs” were put out by multiple Big Pharma companies. The release of these go against “The Nuremburg Code” and the US Laws we have for that. The COVID virus was created in China as is Big Pharma vaccines. The US government gave the Big Pharma companies freedom from being sued.
Normally to do a proper vaccine it takes a very small sample of the virus and then about five years of testing, fixing problems, and putting it out to the public without over 100 people have side affects or deaths. This was not done as the “Emergency Drugs” were listed as vaccines to all ages. They were pushed heavily, pushed by corporations, media, and government or you would lose your job, and in many times people got sent to Hospitals. Once in a Hospital they died.
The government gave Hospitals money for COVID activity so if anyone was in the Hospital for any work it somehow became COVID. If they had a accident and died it became COVID. Hospitals and Doctors got money for this.
The Emergency Drugs since they were put out quickly does not fully have a listing of what affect they will have on people. The issues that are being seen are people are having Heart Attacks, Massive Blood Clots, and other issues due to side affects and death. The open question is: Was this planned to kill off people?
If the Republicans take over Congress then will there be massive investigations into this? If Congress finds the details will the DOJ actually handle anything? I see issues as many in government and Congress (both sides) bought stock in Big Pharma prior to COVID so they are part of the issue?
This was a superb article that showed the absence of the classical elements of what is called repentance in RFS Jewish tradition . What this article really said was that you have to. breaks a few eggs to make an omelette which is a classical rationale for Communism
There will be no forgiveness, nor will anyone forget. Remember how leftists were urging families to tear each other apart at gatherings for holidays just for their own sadistic, psychotic need to create strife? I remember the items in the news about “how to confront your vaccine skeptic family”, and “how to divorce yourself from their misinformed ways” and other such verbiage—all with tacit approval of waste like Emily Oster. Her screeching for amnesty is nothing but a similar sociopathic play for “well, *I* got away with it” mentality that is boilerplate modern Marxist.
There isn’t enough scorn, derision or shunning that could be done to people like her. Knowing that she’s an attention-addicted whackademic, the most apt punishment would be sending her into complete obscurity.
Your choice for words in the title is sublime: Because ‘Accountability’ is always what is missing with all of the Keiths and Karens who’ve deemed themselves our betters, to include Fauci, Birx, Schwaub, Gates the AMA and the collective anyone who chose to exclude someone because they didn’t comply with arbitrary standards, or chose not to give PROVEN life saving medicinal protocols (e.g. hydroxycholoquine-zithromax-zinc or ivermectin therapies), instead letting people die. Hippocratic oath, my ass!
They have all of these great ideas about how “we need to sacrifice,” but much like the old joke about the Hen and Pig discussing who sacrificed more for the farmer’s Ham and egg breakfast applies here too.
This was “a hill to die on.” Did you mount an adequate defense at the risk of being shunned by family and friends? Did you lose family, friends, loved ones, a soul mate, career or social status?
Are you battle hardened yet? This was just the first shot: The real test is coming. In the raging storm, Can you H O L D F A S T?
Cartoonist Tatsuya Ishida gets trendy on this subject.