I worked with health public policymakers for nearly two decades. In open and closed-door meeting rooms with top hospital officials, lawyers, insurers, regulators, practitioners, elected officials. When emergency powers were invoked in early 2020, including the travel ban from China in late January, I knew enough to know everything was wrong about the response. It wasn't following the script, the plans, that had been in place for many years. Decades of commissions, planning, funded by billions of dollars of research and support staff all worked countless hundreds of thousands of hours+ to produce comprehensive responses that protected both collective public safety and the safeguards on western liberal democratic freedoms, individual liberty were tossed in an instant. Elected officials and media helplessly bemoaned that "there was no plan in place, we were caught unprepared," as a political indictment of Pres. Trump, who they loathed more than any pandemic threat. The billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of man hours spent preparing for such a health emergency were a small sacrifice to "get Trump."
But Trump was no innocent victim in this. His China travel ban was the original sin that contradicted all prior pandemic emergency plans, led to the political science response to a medical science emergency. In fact, the original pandemic plans of the WHO and other national and global health concerns explicitly warned against imposing travel bans for pandemic influenza. Stating that they are known to be ineffective, pandemic virus outbreaks are not controlled by restricting human movement. At most they can be effective at slowing the spread in a community for a week or two if detected early enough. By January, 2020 when the travel ban was enacted it was already too late, reviews of data revealed it had already been detected in many places around the world by October, 2019.
The pre-2020 pandemic plans also stated that by imposing travel bans nations are in effect blaming other nations for spreading pandemic influenza, as if it could be controlled once it becomes a part of the environment, sufficiently widespread. It cannot; it becomes a part of the atmospheric ocean of air containing microscopic microbiology and remains that we live and breath in. Familiar with those weather reports of Saharan dust clouds crossing oceans, smoke from California fires darkening the air half a continent away. And that's just the heavy particulates that are visible, the smaller microbiology in air similarly spreads everywhere. It cannot be contained. And much of it remains viable even after crossing entire oceans.
The pre-2020 pandemic plans continued by cautioning that when nation's blame other nations for invisibly causing harms that they do not control, that nation's leaders will resort to blaming their own people for invisibly causing harms that they do not control. Sh!t rolls down hill, they say. Most in power will fear being blamed for not doing anything, resulting in preventable illness and death. So they will clamp down on the behaviors and mobility of their people, resulting in police states that don't respect western liberal democratic values of freedom and individual liberty. Authoritarian regimes emerge, totalitarianism spreads.
The pre-2020 pandemic plans said this. Said exactly this. And our shared lived experience tells us the pre-2020 pandemic plans were right to warn of what would result from issuing travel bans to control pandemic influenza. Trump was wrong. His original sin. That, sadly, he and many others still claim saved millions of lives, even his political opponents now say that's one thing he got right. Wrongly. The right lessons of the pandemic response have not yet been learned.
This is because once those in power got used to their emergency powers they liked the ability to govern by edict, bypassing the democratic processes they found cumbersome, inefficient, obstructionist. They became and many remain drunk on their power. And, sadly, tragically, large percentages of the population like it, too. They feel safer knowing (believing) that a strong hand is acting to protect us from dangers. Including the danger of wrongspeak and wrongthink.
I think you and readers will find it interesting to learn that in early 2020 following Trump's imposition of a travel ban from China that official Chinese CCP-controlled media published many editorials and op-eds pushing back on the travel bans for the same reasons contained in the pre-2020 pandemic emergency plans. That they don't work. That the world should be coming together to deal with the public health emergency together, find solutions, without disrupting normal day-to-day life. China Daily, Global Times, etc, published a steady stream of articles pressing the US to lift the travel ban, resume a cooperative posture instead of blaming them. Many of Trump's political opponents agreed at the time, politicians like Nancy Pelosi went to Chinatown in CA and NY for large events to show solidarity with them, "xenophobia" was shouted at Trump for the bans.
The reasoning in the Chinese publications echoed the WHO's and other pre-2020 pandemic plan warnings about the risk to stated western liberal democratic values of individual liberty. They added that if Washington (Trump) persisted with the travel ban and making the pandemic response political that the world would get to see a comparison of the competing systems, collective authoritarianism, vs. individual liberty responses to emergencies. Betting that a collective authoritarian response would prove to have better results than an individual liberty response. And the CCP-approved editorials and op-eds continued by saying that both systems have pluses and minuses, and that while individual liberty societies are more innovative and creative in ordinary times, that in times of emergencies the people will prefer the "firm hand" of strong leadership to guide and protect them.
And wouldn't you know it, they were right. Not only did the Chinese news sources share that accurate understanding of human psychology and governance, they also said that while they believe their collectivist authoritarian system to be superior to the west's individual liberty-centric system, that the time to change systems isn't in the middle of a crisis, even if a collectivist authoritarian system is found to be preferable that those changes to a governing system are best made over time, in a non-emergency situation. By changing systems in an emergency unnecessary harms are inflicted, division and strife results, worsening a crisis. Basically giving us counsel to "Dance with the one who brung ya" until the emergency passes. They told us the truth. Sometimes adversaries will tell you more uncomfortable truths than friends. Uncomfortable truths that you need to hear. But too few listened.
I've shared many of the Chinese editorials and op-eds on prior Substack discussions, have available if anyone is interested. You can also find them by going through the China Daily and Global Times archives from early 2020 searching keywords like ban, pandemic, authoritarian, covid, etc. And even though China resorted to restricting citizen movement and other measures we consider extreme, going against their own early advice not to, those were still political moves, asserting the authority of the state in an authoritarian society, not medically effective.
Thing is, with all of this information I share being known to officials, both in the US and western liberal democratic nations, and in China, the pandemic response that flew in the face of known epidemiological, virological, sociological and political science could only have been intentional. Which is why the notion of a "plandemic" continues to thrive, with more and more people believing it was all planned every day. Because they knew! And did it anyways.
Collectivist authoritarianism was/is their goal. Western liberal democratic values of freedom and individual liberty are being discarded across the western world. It's no accident or coincidence. And we had better wake up to that unpleasant reality. And address it, counter it, fight to protect our God-given rights that we were all endowed with by our creator.
At first I wrote a reply that got into nuance, higher reasoning. Then I realized I'm dealing with a very simple mind. And will keep it simple instead.
Fauci. Baric. They and other US officials, acting as top US health officials loaded with millions of US dollars and hordes of US research created Wuhan. You can't indict China without indicting the US. The world would be right to say a pox on both our houses if we get into the blame game. No causus belie supports retribution. The US is just as guilty under international law.
TexasBrand, I know your heart and values are in the right place. And we'd find alignment on many important issues. But I seek truth. Even unpleasant ones. If those truths implicate my 'team' then so be it. My loyalty is to truth. Not a team. Not a man. Not even someone who ordinarily allies like you thinks is the Second Coming of Christ. So bless your little heart, Sugar.
I worked with health public policymakers for nearly two decades. In open and closed-door meeting rooms with top hospital officials, lawyers, insurers, regulators, practitioners, elected officials. When emergency powers were invoked in early 2020, including the travel ban from China in late January, I knew enough to know everything was wrong about the response. It wasn't following the script, the plans, that had been in place for many years. Decades of commissions, planning, funded by billions of dollars of research and support staff all worked countless hundreds of thousands of hours+ to produce comprehensive responses that protected both collective public safety and the safeguards on western liberal democratic freedoms, individual liberty were tossed in an instant. Elected officials and media helplessly bemoaned that "there was no plan in place, we were caught unprepared," as a political indictment of Pres. Trump, who they loathed more than any pandemic threat. The billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of man hours spent preparing for such a health emergency were a small sacrifice to "get Trump."
But Trump was no innocent victim in this. His China travel ban was the original sin that contradicted all prior pandemic emergency plans, led to the political science response to a medical science emergency. In fact, the original pandemic plans of the WHO and other national and global health concerns explicitly warned against imposing travel bans for pandemic influenza. Stating that they are known to be ineffective, pandemic virus outbreaks are not controlled by restricting human movement. At most they can be effective at slowing the spread in a community for a week or two if detected early enough. By January, 2020 when the travel ban was enacted it was already too late, reviews of data revealed it had already been detected in many places around the world by October, 2019.
The pre-2020 pandemic plans also stated that by imposing travel bans nations are in effect blaming other nations for spreading pandemic influenza, as if it could be controlled once it becomes a part of the environment, sufficiently widespread. It cannot; it becomes a part of the atmospheric ocean of air containing microscopic microbiology and remains that we live and breath in. Familiar with those weather reports of Saharan dust clouds crossing oceans, smoke from California fires darkening the air half a continent away. And that's just the heavy particulates that are visible, the smaller microbiology in air similarly spreads everywhere. It cannot be contained. And much of it remains viable even after crossing entire oceans.
The pre-2020 pandemic plans continued by cautioning that when nation's blame other nations for invisibly causing harms that they do not control, that nation's leaders will resort to blaming their own people for invisibly causing harms that they do not control. Sh!t rolls down hill, they say. Most in power will fear being blamed for not doing anything, resulting in preventable illness and death. So they will clamp down on the behaviors and mobility of their people, resulting in police states that don't respect western liberal democratic values of freedom and individual liberty. Authoritarian regimes emerge, totalitarianism spreads.
The pre-2020 pandemic plans said this. Said exactly this. And our shared lived experience tells us the pre-2020 pandemic plans were right to warn of what would result from issuing travel bans to control pandemic influenza. Trump was wrong. His original sin. That, sadly, he and many others still claim saved millions of lives, even his political opponents now say that's one thing he got right. Wrongly. The right lessons of the pandemic response have not yet been learned.
This is because once those in power got used to their emergency powers they liked the ability to govern by edict, bypassing the democratic processes they found cumbersome, inefficient, obstructionist. They became and many remain drunk on their power. And, sadly, tragically, large percentages of the population like it, too. They feel safer knowing (believing) that a strong hand is acting to protect us from dangers. Including the danger of wrongspeak and wrongthink.
I think you and readers will find it interesting to learn that in early 2020 following Trump's imposition of a travel ban from China that official Chinese CCP-controlled media published many editorials and op-eds pushing back on the travel bans for the same reasons contained in the pre-2020 pandemic emergency plans. That they don't work. That the world should be coming together to deal with the public health emergency together, find solutions, without disrupting normal day-to-day life. China Daily, Global Times, etc, published a steady stream of articles pressing the US to lift the travel ban, resume a cooperative posture instead of blaming them. Many of Trump's political opponents agreed at the time, politicians like Nancy Pelosi went to Chinatown in CA and NY for large events to show solidarity with them, "xenophobia" was shouted at Trump for the bans.
The reasoning in the Chinese publications echoed the WHO's and other pre-2020 pandemic plan warnings about the risk to stated western liberal democratic values of individual liberty. They added that if Washington (Trump) persisted with the travel ban and making the pandemic response political that the world would get to see a comparison of the competing systems, collective authoritarianism, vs. individual liberty responses to emergencies. Betting that a collective authoritarian response would prove to have better results than an individual liberty response. And the CCP-approved editorials and op-eds continued by saying that both systems have pluses and minuses, and that while individual liberty societies are more innovative and creative in ordinary times, that in times of emergencies the people will prefer the "firm hand" of strong leadership to guide and protect them.
And wouldn't you know it, they were right. Not only did the Chinese news sources share that accurate understanding of human psychology and governance, they also said that while they believe their collectivist authoritarian system to be superior to the west's individual liberty-centric system, that the time to change systems isn't in the middle of a crisis, even if a collectivist authoritarian system is found to be preferable that those changes to a governing system are best made over time, in a non-emergency situation. By changing systems in an emergency unnecessary harms are inflicted, division and strife results, worsening a crisis. Basically giving us counsel to "Dance with the one who brung ya" until the emergency passes. They told us the truth. Sometimes adversaries will tell you more uncomfortable truths than friends. Uncomfortable truths that you need to hear. But too few listened.
I've shared many of the Chinese editorials and op-eds on prior Substack discussions, have available if anyone is interested. You can also find them by going through the China Daily and Global Times archives from early 2020 searching keywords like ban, pandemic, authoritarian, covid, etc. And even though China resorted to restricting citizen movement and other measures we consider extreme, going against their own early advice not to, those were still political moves, asserting the authority of the state in an authoritarian society, not medically effective.
Thing is, with all of this information I share being known to officials, both in the US and western liberal democratic nations, and in China, the pandemic response that flew in the face of known epidemiological, virological, sociological and political science could only have been intentional. Which is why the notion of a "plandemic" continues to thrive, with more and more people believing it was all planned every day. Because they knew! And did it anyways.
Collectivist authoritarianism was/is their goal. Western liberal democratic values of freedom and individual liberty are being discarded across the western world. It's no accident or coincidence. And we had better wake up to that unpleasant reality. And address it, counter it, fight to protect our God-given rights that we were all endowed with by our creator.
Nice defense of CCP!!!
CCP is developing bio-weapons & had a chance to test one even if it was accidental.
Geniuses like you didnтАЩt implement the fine plan to save America.
DonтАЩt throw Trump under bus for that.
Our health experts like you gave him terrific advice . . . Not!!!
At first I wrote a reply that got into nuance, higher reasoning. Then I realized I'm dealing with a very simple mind. And will keep it simple instead.
Fauci. Baric. They and other US officials, acting as top US health officials loaded with millions of US dollars and hordes of US research created Wuhan. You can't indict China without indicting the US. The world would be right to say a pox on both our houses if we get into the blame game. No causus belie supports retribution. The US is just as guilty under international law.
TexasBrand, I know your heart and values are in the right place. And we'd find alignment on many important issues. But I seek truth. Even unpleasant ones. If those truths implicate my 'team' then so be it. My loyalty is to truth. Not a team. Not a man. Not even someone who ordinarily allies like you thinks is the Second Coming of Christ. So bless your little heart, Sugar.
Anyone with half a brain knew not to trust the "health experts." Trump is either a con or he got completely rolled. Either scenario is not good.