the global columbo: vaccine passports

the "just one more thing" that takes us over the event horizon

perhaps some of you remember TV’s detective columbo, he of rambling questions and dialogue. for those that do not, the signature move of this LA gumshoe was to end the interview, let everyone let their guard down, and then, as he was walking away, turn around and say “oh, just one more thing…” and hit you with the cutting question to watch you flinch. and people do flinch. this tactic is so effective it’s been enshrined in sales and interview books for decades. in homage, many call it “the columbo.” mis amigos, we are getting columboed. bigly.

as everything is winding down in so much if the US despite half the country and growing being open for months, suddenly the vaccine passport projects are being foregrounded and pushed as “the way to safely open.” they are nothing of the sort.

they are literally the culmination of a set of long term plans and a nasty confluence of incentives that will cross an event horizon from which there is no going back. this is the introduction of a level of governmental control into your everyday life the likes of which, unless you grew up in china or the behind the iron curtain, you have never experienced before. it’s telling how many of my friends who did are howling in terror about this. i’m watching people who fled to the US from the USSR get ready to flee america. they’ve seen this movie before and do not want to see it again. let that one sink in before you dismiss this, because half of america is sitting here right now like a tame fawn nuzzling a cheetah thinking “wow, i really do not see what the big deal is. he seems nice! why are people scared of these things?” this is not a lesson you want to learn the hard way.

but is this really a cheetah? or does it just want to help? the answer, interestingly enough, is that it really does not matter. once you put this system into place, even if it is not a hungry predator today, sure as bacon is bacon, one day, it will be. this never goes well for senor fawn.

“but how can intention not matter?” one might ask. it’s a fair question and one worthy of real response. because of coyote’s law. my longtime friend warren “coyote” meyer of coyoteblog fame framed this issue perfectly many years back: “before granting any power to government, first imagine that power wielded by the politician you despise most. because one day, it will be.” and oh, how it will be. this is what you need to realize. even if it is not sinister right this moment, are you willing to bet your long-term freedom on a power this extensive being left lying around for every future leader to use or abuse, to extend and weave deeper into the fabric of your everyday life without them abusing it? because they will. did you not see what just happened over the last year as “2 weeks to flatten the curve” became a year of lockdown, how “sparing hospitals” became the ludicrous “zero covid,” and how “just until we get a vaccine” became “not even once you’re vaccinated”? we’ve been getting columboed all year. it’s always “one more thing.” it’s always “well, we need to take back what we gave and a bit more.” look how partisan and predatory it became. if you think these people can be trusted administer a vaccine passport and not abuse this truly draconian new power, well, you’re pretty much going to deserve losing your liberty. i cannot imagine what would finally wise you up.

so, why is this so dangerous?

let’s start with the danger so we can see just what sort of tool we’re proposing to leave lying around, because this one is a doozie. a digital ID/vaccine passport will touch nearly everyone and nearly every aspect of your life (or will rapidly expand to do so). like any good vampire, it will be charming and ask to be invited into your house. it will tell you it’s your friend. it is not. what it is is a requirement for you, now and forever, to acquire affirmative permission to engage in the basic actions of living your life, going to work, traveling, eating out, etc.

you will need this passport to fly, to take the subway, to go to a restaurant or a pub, possibly to go to work, and rapidly who knows what else. and the state is already making ominous noises about “vaccine durability” so you’ll likely need it renewed, probably annually. maybe we’ll add flu shots. it also means it can be revoked at whim and that if it is, you’ve basically been cancelled. you cannot travel, commute, work, eat out, go to school, and who knows what else. in the modern world, this is crippling. sure, the state, if determined could probably do many of these things to you anyhow if it really wanted to, but it would have to seek you out, do so, and find actual legal pretext for most of it. this inverts that. the state, using police or other agents, could stop you from going out to eat if they were really determined, but this would pose a number of issues for them. however, with a vax passport, you need to secure their affirmative permission to do this thing. you no longer have a right, you are reduced to asking for the privilege and they can require all manner of prostrations to grant it to you. it might start with “did you get this year’s booster?” but when some future villain adds “show me your social media posts” what are you going to do? if you refuse, you’ll be locked out of your own life and isolated from society. there is a good reason fascists and authoritarians are always so big on “papers” for everyone. it’s because if they take them away, you are well and truly screwed. it starts as benign, but you land here faster than you can believe:

“i don’t think the government is allowed to do that!” oh, really? in 2019, did you think they were allowed to mandate lockdowns and close the whole world? to tell you you cannot go to work, to school, or out to eat? to enact travel bans and demand proof of health status to undertake basic actions? or did that maybe surprise you a bit? and the way this (and fascist systems in general) run is designed to skirt the law anyway, at least until it’s too late. “it’s not us,” the government will proclaim, “it’s the airlines and the hotels and the restaurants that demand this. they are private businesses!” um, yeah. pull my other paw, it plays jingle bells. the state regulates all these things. masks got mandated on airlines. you think they cannot mandate a vax ID? the airports are all federal. every bar, restaurant, hotel, roadhouse, and outhouse requires some kind of permit or license to operate. this system will NOT be voluntary. and watch what it is already morphing into: biometric surveillance. the UK is already pushing it.

note the helpful tone. “no, this is not creepy and orwellian, it’s to enhance convenience” that we’re going to track your face and link it to medical (and who knows what other) records. because this is nice fascism. with nice ideas. and customer service. see, i make for you “heart hands.”

this will become all pervasive and spread like lice at sleep-away camp and once it starts, you will be powerless to stop it or to resist. if you do, you’ll just get your life cancelled with one mouse click. the trade off will always seem bad, it will always be choosing the lesser of evils, but it’s just going to be columbo after columbo in some sort of ever expanding matryoshka doll of tyranny adding layer after layer, on and on, world without end. well, it’s just social media. i can’t not do it, i need to work and fly. well, it’s just bank accounts. well, it’s just agreeing to a loyalty oath. you’ll be at “jeez, i need to get my sesame score up or i’m going to get fired at work” so fast it will make your head spin because even if you think the folks that want this now are benign (and they are not) you just bet your life-long freedom on the fact that the next ones and the ones after that will be too. there are event horizons in the world, lines which once you cross, you do not get to come back. this is one of them and it’s going to be really nastily durable because it not only suits the cravings of statists for totalitarian power, but it suits the commercial and fascist cravings of big business as well. when you get all these interests riding around in the same car, it will inevitably drive right over “we the people.” every. single. time.

the dangerous confluence

this mandatory, privilege-linked digital ID is not some new idea. this did not just come out of nowhere, it’s been a longstanding project in many circles and one that has been a sometimes stealthy and sometimes overt trojan horse for fascism and fascist profiteering. the EU has been at it for years, probably decades.

now this sounds innocuous enough. oh, we just want vaccine cards and common ID’s, but as i laid out above, mission creep and abuse here is going to be a scary potential. worse, many private actors have strong incentives to help governments turn that potential into reality. back in 2019, we saw ID2020 already gearing up to push this and use vaccines to drive widespread ID into poor countries.

these folks have been waiting for a pandemic because this is how they get massive adoption of their product. this is not some heroic response, it’s the opportunity to catch the world when it is scared, weak, and pliable that these companies have been waiting for. this has been the plan for years. it's been in trials for years. pandemics and vaccination campaigns (both big projects for the gates foundation) have been seen as the means to push this all along.

kim gagne, who runs ID2020 comes from microsoft.

dakota gruener, the executive director, hails from the vaccine alliance.

there is no coincidence here, only confluence. big pharma wants to be able to require vaccination. big tech wants to be able to require digital ID. and big government sees both as an incredible opportunity for ubiquitous social tracking and authoritarian social control. you do not need conspiracies run by sinister villains laughing and twirling their moustaches when you have this sort of alignment of interests among all the players. authoritarianism is great for business if you’re one of the connected firms. annual vaccination boosters that are all but mandatory, huge ID projects to implement and administer: this is annuity mana from heaven. all you need to do is enable and encourage terrifying statism. this is the dirty secret folks: companies were not dragged kicking and screaming into the fascist systems of the 1930’s. they advocated for it and cheer led it because it was incredible for the bottom line. it being terrible for you, well, too bad, so sad, do you have any idea how profitable this new “anti-domestic terrorism surveillance module” is going to be to roll out once they pass the “patriot act 2.0”?

it CAN happen here

look, i get it. it sounds like dystopian sci-fi. it sounds like poorly medicated tinfoil hattery or the dreams you get after you fall asleep reading orwell while eating a double anchovy pizza, but it's not.

ask yourself a simple question: 14 months ago, if someone told you what was going to happen in 2020, that half the world would be locked down, the economy stopped, rights taken, masks mandated, and any protests against it stifled with police and censorship while at the same time, woke mobs would be not just allowed to burn and loot cities for days and weeks on end and roam armed and aggressive through the streets they have declared to be "autonomous zones" but cheered on by the same people that locked you in your home, would you have believed that either?

because some of us called it because we saw it coming. that does not make us right this time. it does not make me right as i speak now. but at the very least, it should, perhaps, earn us and me an open-minded listen. i get how crazy this can all sound, but every once free now fascist and totalitarian state has one thing in common: they did not believe it could happen here.

it can. it will.

this is the last piece guys. this is the inch we cannot yield, the place where the line MUST be held. if you need the positive permission of the state to go outside and work and travel and perhaps even to try to leave, then there is NOTHING they cannot do to you.

vaccine passports are the bridge too far. they're the tipping point from which you cannot get back off the slippery slope. this is not the time to trust these conmen one more time. this is the one where they take everything from you.

if you value your freedom at all, do not let them. this is the fake tradeoff for fake safety that will land you in serfdom, and the road back once you cross that rubicon is neither easy nor peaceful. so turn back now while it still is.