On July 4, 1776, newly minted Americans rejected tyranny, elevating liberty and individual freedom as the new nation's overarching principles.

Current Democrat leaders — whether you call them leftists, progressives, socialists, radicals, or Marxists — are intent on undoing what happened 246 years ago.  They know that the key to establishing and maintaining tyranny is control of information.  Words such as "disinformation" and "misinformation" are powerful weapons, mightier than tanks, rockets, or nuclear bombs.

The COVID pandemic, a fabricated existential threat, provides a recent demonstration of how information control can be used to reassert tyranny.

Misinformation

The epithet "misinformation" is defined as "false, inaccurate, or misleading information."  Democrats use the word to indicate any information that questions or contradicts what we say.

As progressive Democrats used the false COVID threat to take emergency powers and subvert the Bill of Rights, they deployed the designation "misinformation" to quash any suggestion that their COVID mandates were unscientific, destructive, and unconstitutional.

Robert Malone, one of the architects of mRNA technology, tried to warn the public against mandating 330 million Americans to accept an experimental therapy — the mRNA "jab" — when there were no moderate- or long-term outcome data.  When he disputed Washington mandates, his concerns were labeled misinformation, he was canceled, his writings were censored, and he was banned from Twitter.

Jessica Rose, Ph.D., analyzed VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System) data.  She found undercounting and under-reporting of adverse side-effects from mRNA vaccination.  After submitting for publication, the journal publisher, not peer reviewers, refused to publish her work.  Democrats do not allow free speech.

In October 2020, three eminent physicians, faculty members at Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford, published the Great Barrington Declaration, which proposed a public health approach to COVID that avoided lockdowns and universal vaccine mandates. 

In response, then–NIH director Francis Collins sent a tweet to Anthony Fauci calling the authors "fringe epidemiologists" and demanding "a quick and devastating public take-down of its premises."  Washington could not tolerate such misinformation.

To assure that the public was not exposed to dangerous, psychologically damaging reports, federal agencies such as the CDC and HHS (Health and Human Services) as well as the WHO (World Health Organization) issued formal rules against spreading so-called COVID misinformation.

Disinformation

Though the phrase "COVID disinformation" is never spoken aloud, Democrats emulate Soviets in Pravda ("Truth") and extensively deploy progressive disinformation: "false information deliberately and often covertly."  Complicit mainstream media release Democrat truth without objective investigation or factual confirmation.

Fauci's face mask disinformation quickly became an absolute requirement.  Masking was required to go anywhere or do anything, even riding a bicycle!  Yet study after study, even from the CDC, showed that masks do not protect against COVID infection.  One report suggested that masks could actually promote infection with pathogens more dangerous than COVID.

Washington implemented an unprecedented lockdown of the entire country, preventing Americans from going to work, attending school or church, or gathering in groups.  Biden suppressed the Bill of Rights.  With absolutely no medical or scientific evidence that quarantining healthy people would stop the pandemic, tyrant Biden imposed a complete lockdown: national solitary confinement.  Biden and Fauci assured that the public lockdowns would save lives.  This was disinformation — they simply made it up.

A 2022 study compared the effects of Democrat COVID mandates on mortality, economic consequences, and youth education.  States like California and New York, which maintained masking, social distancing, and lockdowns, did much worse than states like Florida and West Virginia in all three categories.  Following the mandates cost lives, money, and education of the children.  This hard evidence strongly suggests that the Democrat COVID narrative was disinformation used to justify political tyranny.

No accountability

When individuals are free, they make choices. They are responsible as well as accountable.  When tyrants rule, people are neither free nor responsible.  Government makes choices and is responsible.  More accurately, government bureaucracies make choices, and, theoretically, they are responsible.  Since the responsibility is widely diffused in any bureaucracy, no one is accountable.

The CDC imposed lockdowns.  The FDA stopped physicians from using ivernectin.  These decisions harmed the public.  The CDC and FDA are huge bureaucracies where no one is considered responsible, and no one is held accountable.

When Democrat narratives and mandates are shown to be disinformation, Democrats accept no responsibility, exhibit no contrition, and suffer no consequences.  Actually, the last is not true.  There is a consequence.  The public no longer trusts them.

Both the WHO and the medical journal Lancet recently announced that COVID originated as an accidental leak from the virology lab in Wuhan, China.  Yet, in February 2020, WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spearheaded efforts to "combat the spread of rumors and misinformation" that suggested that China was complicit in the spread of COVID.  In March 2020, the Lancet attacked anyone who raised the possibility that COVID came from the Chinese lab.

Their recent announcement (admission) made no reference to their previous, false statements.  They behave as though they are not accountable for their earlier disinformation.

American tyranny?

The spirit of 1776 gave every American freedom, the right to choose.  "With freedom comes responsibility" (Eleanor Roosevelt), and with personal responsibility comes accountability.

In the Marxist utopia of BLM and radical socialist progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, government chooses, not the individual.  Washington decides where you live, what you eat, whether you travel, if you gather with others, money you have, what your child is taught in school, and your medical care.  Most important, government chooses what you are allowed to see, hear, or read, and what is forbidden to you.

Progressives used information control — misinformation, disinformation, censorship, and canceling — to acquire powers prohibited to them by the Constitution.  The Bill of Rights, separation of powers, and checks and balances were woven into the fabric of the USA specifically to prevent government overreach and a restoration of tyranny such as Democrats are attempting.

They used a false public health crisis as the excuse to suspend constitutional protections.  Because their information control allowed the public to see and hear only what Democrats wanted us to see, Americans acceded to their quasi-martial law.

But gradually, piece by piece, the truth of COVID came out.  It was not a grave danger to the vast majority of Americans.  Lockdowns were incorrect public health policy.  mRNA vaccines were not safe, effective, or protective.

Knowing that Democrat information control was used to reassert tyranny in the U.S., how should patriots respond?  Re-establish the principles of the U.S. Constitution, using the two great powers that Americans possess: the ballot box and the wallet.

Remove from office those who seek to tyrannize us.  Ignore their words.  Focus on what they actually did or are doing.  Replace tyrants with individuals who have track records proving their support for our personal freedom and our Constitution.

If you do not want CRT indoctrination and transgender sex education in kindergarten, replace your local school board officials.

Just as Americans can direct their votes, they can direct spending.  Expend dollars only with companies that share Americans values.  Withdraw support from censors like Twitter, YouTube, Amazon, and Google.  Unless you are woke, avoid Disney.

Polls suggest that Americans no longer trust Democrats and will repudiate their tyranny in November 2022.

However, Americans must be clear what they vote for, not merely what they vote against.  

Deane Waldman, M.D., MBA is professor emeritus of pediatrics, pathology, and decision science; former director of the Center for Healthcare Policy at Texas Public Policy Foundation; and author of the multi-award-winning book Curing the Cancer in U.S. Healthcare: StatesCare and Market-Based Medicine.  

Image: qimono via Pixabay, Pixabay License.