Another new day, another new variant of the coronavirus, another new scare campaign by the tyrannical medical establishment and their media lackeys (the South African doctor who discovered the variant says the symptoms are mild). This hasn’t stopped a new fear campaign and overreaction by many governments, though there is irony in that many who openly endorse murdering unborn babies are suddenly enthused with such zeal to protect human life in combating COVID. The problem with the new fear campaign over the omicron variant is the further degradation of liberty and Constitutional rights already manifesting because of it.

As the new Cold War with China ratchets up, the Western world has dealt the cards against themselves. The trumpet of freedom and liberty cannot be sounded without charges of hypocrisy and hollowness as we witness the supposedly free democratic world, especially in places like Australia and New Zealand (not to mention the United Kingdom and Europe), engage in the some of the most vicious and tyrannical lockdowns in the world. These lockdowns, restructuring of government power and control over businesses and individuals, aim at one thing: the remaking of our relationship to the state.

What the totalitarians who have weaponized the coronavirus fail to acknowledge is that they have politicized the virus, not conservatives, libertarians, and the few remaining civil liberals who are concerned with the aggressive and militant overreach of the federal government and medical institutions.

The new totalitarians assert those of us who wish to keep the flame of liberty and the human spirit alive of politicizing the virus. Shame is their calling card. The claim that liberty-loving and defending individuals have weaponized the virus for political purposes doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Those critical of government overreach want to preserve and restore the constitutional liberties and way of life pre-pandemic. It has nothing to do with the coronavirus and everything to do with the basic structure of political society. We have been fighting to maintain the spirit of liberty against the new Bolsheviks before COVID, we remain defending the spirit of liberty against the new Bolsheviks during COVID and, God willing, will continue to fight them after COVID.

Moreover, liberty lost is hard to regain. This is a truism that all liberty-loving people know. Let us look at those “conspiracies” that turned out to be true.

Concern over the precedent set by national lockdowns were brushed aside as the talk of radicals. “Flatten the curve,” the proponents of the lockdown said. “Reopen in two weeks,” the proponents of the lockdown said. “Lockdowns won’t happen again,” the proponents of the lockdown claimed. “Everything will go back to normal,” they claimed.

Turns out, many places have reentered lockdowns. Not only have they reentered lockdowns, the new lockdowns are more draconian than the first. And no critically thinking individual genuinely believes that when there is relaxation of lockdowns—if there is—begins, that the world we will return to was the same as before in terms of rights and liberties. Governments the world over have revealed their belief that they own you and can, and should, have control over your life and actions.

Concern over creating a second-class of citizens because of vaccine mandates were cast aside as silly talk, the talk of conspiracy theorists and other nutjobs. Yet we see in Democrat cities and states precisely that. The vaccinated are granted greater rights and privileges than the unvaccinated.

Unvaccinated individuals, by contrast, are not only shamed, they are also being completely ostracized in society. Businesses penalize or fire them. You might even become a prisoner in your own home or apartment, as is happening in places like Austria. Some people might even self-impose their own imprisonment at the indirect advice of government, media, and health officials.

Concern about the abrogation of basic freedoms and rights we formerly took for granted—the human right to free protest, free worship of religion, and free speech have—revealed the totalitarian impulse weaponized by the totalitarians inside our country and around the world.

We proclaim the dignity of free speech, freedom of assembly, and free worship of God, yet throughout the Western World and in various states in the U.S., the war against free speech, free assembly, and freedom of religion is getting even more aggressive than before. Agents of the state bully church-going congregants and anyone protesting tyrannical government policies. Say, or type, something that enrages the medical guardians and their digital mobs, kiss your account goodbye.

For those who have raised issues about the totalitarian power plays by governments and politicians during this now never-ending pandemic, the fight remains the same. Don’t let governments discard their own constitutional restraints in the name of public health and safety (the easiest veil for totalitarians to use in their tyrannical lusts in free societies because human nature instinctively wants to be safe). Don’t let the media and their strongarm tactics scare you into submission. Don’t willingly rollover and handover your God-given rights and liberties to faceless bureaucrats and scientists.

What infuriated the totalitarians trying to use COVID as their means to remake society was the fighting back by the people and by a few courageous mayors and governors. Now, with this variant of COVID emerging, they will once again beat the drum of fear to try and scare us into submission and claim that those few politicians who stand up for liberty and don’t bow to the altar of medical tyranny are reckless, uncaring, brutes. Don’t let them scare and shame you into surrendering your liberties.

Totalitarianism doesn’t sleep. The new medical communism and fascism that is being pushed by public health experts and their ilk will not rest until they have absolute control over you. We cannot let our guard down even if they will retort to all the usual insults and shaming. We who cherish liberty do not wish any of our fellow citizens to die from the coronavirus. But we also don’t wish for that other lifeblood of existence, our rights and liberties, to die as well. And as the past year and half has proved, we should worry about the erasure of our political and civil liberties just as we do our personal health.

Paul Krause is a writer, editor, and teacher. He is the author of The Odyssey of Love: A Christian Guide to the Great Books, The Politics of Plato, and contributed to The College Lecture Today and the forthcoming book Diseases, Disasters, and Political Theory. He is the incoming editor of VoegelinView.

Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License

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