This article was originally published by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead at The Rutherford Institute.
“All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwald, the Auschwitzes—all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers.”— Rod Serling, Deaths-Head Revisited
In the politically charged, polarizing tug-of-war that is the debate over COVID-19, we find ourselves buffeted by fear over a viral pandemic that continues to wreak havoc with lives and the economy, threats of vaccine mandates and financial penalties for noncompliance, and discord over how to legislate the public good without sacrificing individual liberty.
The discord is getting more discordant by the day.
Just recently, for instance, the Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board suggested that government officials should mandate mass vaccinations and deploy the National Guard “to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere.”
In other words, lock up the unvaccinated and use the military to determine who gets to be “free.”
These tactics have been used before.
For a glimpse at what the future might look like if such a policy were to be enforced, look beyond America’s borders.
In Italy, the unvaccinated are banned from restaurants, bars, and public transportation, and could face suspensions from work and monthly fines. Similarly, France will ban the unvaccinated from most public venues.
In Austria, anyone who has not complied with the vaccine mandate could face fines up to $4100. Police will be authorized to carry out routine checks and demand proof of vaccination, with penalties of as much as $685 for failure to do so.
In China, which has adopted a zero-tolerance, “zero COVID” strategy, whole cities—some with populations in the tens of millions—are being forced into home lockdowns for weeks on end, resulting in mass shortages of food and household supplies. Reports have surfaced of residents “trading cigarettes for cabbage, dishwashing liquid for apples, and sanitary pads for a small pile of vegetables. One resident traded a Nintendo Switch console for a packet of instant noodles and two steamed buns.”
For those unfortunate enough to contract COVID-19, China has constructed “quarantine camps” throughout the country: massive complexes boasting thousands of small, metal boxes containing little more than a bed and a toilet. Detainees—including children, pregnant women, and the elderly— were reportedly ordered to leave their homes in the middle of the night, transported to the quarantine camps in buses, and held in isolation.
If this last scenario sounds chillingly familiar, it should.
Eighty years ago, another authoritarian regime established more than 44,000 quarantine camps for those perceived as “enemies of the state”: racially inferior, politically unacceptable, or simply non-compliant.
While the majority of those imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camps, forced labor camps, incarceration sites, and ghettos were Jews, there were also Polish nationals, gypsies, Russians, political dissidents, resistance fighters, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals.
Culturally, we have become so fixated on the mass murders of Jewish prisoners by the Nazis that we overlook the fact that the purpose of these concentration camps were initially intended to “incarcerate and intimidate the leaders of political, social, and cultural movements that the Nazis perceived to be a threat to the survival of the regime.”
As the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum explains:
“Most prisoners in the early concentration camps were political prisoners—German Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats—as well as Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and persons accused of ‘asocial’ or socially deviant behavior. Many of these sites were called concentration camps. The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy.”
How do you get from there to here, from Auschwitz concentration camps to COVID quarantine centers?
Connect the dots.
You don’t have to be unvaccinated or a conspiracy theorist or even anti-government to be worried about what lies ahead. You just have to recognize the truth in the warning: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This is not about COVID-19. Nor is it about politics, populist movements, or any particular country.
This is about what happens when good, generally decent people—distracted by manufactured crises, polarizing politics, and fighting that divides the populace into warring “us vs. them” camps—fail to take note of the looming danger that threatens to wipe freedom from the map and place us all in chains.
It’s about what happens when any government is empowered to adopt a comply-or-suffer-the-consequences mindset that is enforced through mandates, lockdowns, penalties, detention centers, martial law, and a disregard for the rights of the individual.
The slippery slope begins in just this way, with propaganda campaigns about the public good being more important than individual liberty, and it ends with lockdowns and concentration camps.
The danger signs are everywhere.
Claudio Ronco, a 66-year-old Orthodox Jew and a specialist in 18th-century music, recognizes the signs. Because of his decision to remain unvaccinated, Ronco is trapped inside his house, unable to move about in public without a digital vaccination card. He can no longer board a plane, check into a hotel, eat at a restaurant or get a coffee at a bar. He has been ostracized by friends, shut out of public life, and will soon face monthly fines for insisting on his right to bodily integrity and individual freedom.
This is the slippery slope: a government empowered to restrict movements, limit individual liberty, and isolate “undesirables” to prevent the spread of a disease is a government that has the power to lock down a country, label whole segments of the population a danger to national security, and force those undesirables—a.k.a. extremists, dissidents, troublemakers, etc.—into isolation so they don’t contaminate the rest of the populace.
The world has been down this road before, too.
Others have ignored the warning signs. We cannot afford to do so.
As historian Milton Mayer recounts in his seminal book on Hitler’s rise to power, They Thought They Were Free:
“Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people‑—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies’, without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us.”
The German people chose to ignore the truth and believe the lie.
They were not oblivious to the horrors taking place around them. As historian Robert Gellately points out, “[A]nyone in Nazi Germany who wanted to find out about the Gestapo, the concentration camps, and the campaigns of discrimination and persecutions need only read the newspapers.”
The warning signs were there, blinking incessantly like large neon signs.
“Still,” Gellately writes, “the vast majority voted in favor of Nazism, and in spite of what they could read in the press and hear by word of mouth about the secret police, the concentration camps, official anti-Semitism, and so on. . . . [T]here is no getting away from the fact that at that moment, ‘the vast majority of the German people backed him.’”
Half a century later, the wife of a prominent German historian, neither of whom were members of the Nazi party, opined: “[O]n the whole, everyone felt well. . . . And there were certainly eighty percent who lived productively and positively throughout the time. . . . We also had good years. We had wonderful years.”
In other words, as long as their creature comforts remained undiminished, as long as their bank accounts remained flush, as long as they weren’t being locked up, locked down, discriminated against, persecuted, starved, beaten, shot, stripped, jailed or killed, life was good.
Life is good in America, too, as long as you’re able to keep cocooning yourself in political fantasies that depict a world in which your party is always right and everyone else is wrong while distracting yourself with bread-and-circus entertainment that bears no resemblance to reality.
Indeed, life in America may be good for the privileged few who aren’t being locked up, locked down, discriminated against, persecuted, starved, beaten, shot, stripped, jailed, or killed, but it’s getting worse by the day for the rest of us.
Which brings me back to the present crisis: COVID-19 is not the Holocaust, and those who advocate vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and quarantine camps are not Hitler, but this still has the makings of a slippery slope.
The means do not justify the ends: we must find other ways of fighting a pandemic without resorting to mandates and lockdowns and concentration camps. To do otherwise is to lay the groundwork for another authoritarian monster to rise up and wreak havoc.
If we do not want to repeat the past, then we must learn from past mistakes.
January 27 marks Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a day for remembering those who died at the hands of Hitler’s henchmen and those who survived the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps.
Yet remembering is not enough. We can do better. We must do better.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the world is teetering on the edge of authoritarian madness.
All it will take is one solid push for tyranny to prevail.
The .gov is supposed to work for the country. Not the other way.
There is only ONE correct answer….defend your Freedom with deadly force. There is no other way !
Thanks for the reminder regarding our world’s moves toward authoritarianism. Reminders of “the Holocaust” are useful to illustrate the point. Another severe example is the My Lai massacre that happened during the Vietnam war. A young officer & his young troops were thrown into a jungle war wherein many of their contemporaries were killed & wounded by guerrilla fighters on the other side. The local guerrilla fighters would often ambush French, then later American, troops; then blend back into the local villages. The frustrated reaction by the My Lai involved troops was to engage unarmed civilians.
Authoritarianism & many related atrocities are NOT far from any citizen’s awful experience. We need these reminders to avoid previous human mistakes.
Almost everyone will go along with this, with almost no one holding out.
What are you going to do? Decide now and make your plans before it’s too late and someone else makes the decision for you.
The covid virus and its “solution” in the vaccine never started with good intentions.
Sorry Charlie, the United States is not Australia and way more polarized. The Convid narrative is quickly falling apart and the safety of the MRNA shots. Not gonna happen with 700 million firearms either. You know and I know it. No more doom porn haha yeah right!
If you have to drive across a bridge, drive very fast.
Wait for it. Here to make your existence suk.
John & Nisha Whitehead, great article. Let’s identify a root cause why this is happening. Here is my post from another site (CHD group) this morning which was detailing how the 2 week after vaccination means you are not vaccinated approach, and how that caused statistical analysis failure. This plays into this article because fraud and deception are primary avenues into propagandizing people to get them to act like zealots or turn the other way and do nothing. If absolute power corrupts absolutely, it’s important to identify who has the power, and who does not.
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Thank you for detailing some of the statistical manipulation specifically. Survivor ship bias, I’m going to pick that up, provides a good simple explanation. Just on it’s face, a 2 week data blackout after any event is bound to be a complete fraud. People with the capability to think clearly and discern fact from fiction must have immediately been able to discredit the illogical notion that; ‘you are not vaccinated until 2 weeks after you have been vaccinated’. I immediately rolled my eyes; “What idiot came up with this, in this long line of continued bureaucratic incompetence.” This obviously creates the possibility for fraud deception and plainly incompetently gathered data rendered to have meaningless results.
As the ensuing weeks and months followed where this ‘the first 2 weeks does not count’ newspeak was parroted on every channel in every location, constantly re iterated and re affirmed. The illogical standing was purposeful to take others off of their resistant positions. How is less chocolate more chocolate? We know it’s not true, but how can we prove it? Rats trapped in a maze. Clearly a manipulative process. Clearly a coordinated process. Clearly a deceptive process to mis attribute statistical data to make the vaccine appear safe. Everyone rolled with it nobody objected up front in those magical first few days where we could have vanquished this fraud before it ever grew legs.
Before any results on vaccine safety came in we already knew it was going to be dangerous. Because that is the inevitable conclusion which explains why they had to manipulate safety data from the start and utilize newspeak to affirm the validity of the data manipulation. Obvious is obvious. Up to that point in time the majority of people died due to medical malpractice, there was already massive data mis attribution, and the yearly average death rate had not actually moved, despite the public being whipped into a cases count trance like frenzy of never ending fear that death was imminent. They were actually in more danger at hospitals than at home.
And then the vaccine hit and it prolonged the pandemic for profit, as predicted the vaccine would do just that. Everyone whom mentioned such a point was summarily censored and slandered. The pandemic was actually almost over, until the majority of the populace accepted genetic manipulation substances which turned them into walking prion factories, shedding like cats and dogs everywhere they go. Becoming more susceptible to disease. And then the central planners manipulated effectivity and immunity measurement data of the vaccinated too. Like domino’s falling, now it’s completely obvious; covid wears no clothes. Data manipulation experts such as corporate mouthpiece news and corporate funded ‘fact checkers’ were keen to make sure people did not learn the truth.
Case count manipulation was done to create room for this upcoming long awaited vaccine. To create space for what they knew ahead of time was going to be a vaccine product which would have a much higher danger rate. But this particular vaccine product was worth it to bring to market, because everyone was going to take it. They were not just stepping into the adult market for vaccines, they were breaking into it with a full force blitz to guarantee maximum sales. The marketing plan remains in place; we all need to take vaccines as adults regularly for life. Hell it worked so good for the children, as literally 95% or a greater rate of parents were willing to subscribe their children to this excess vaccination program without question. The industry needed profits, investors had been made promises, the youth market was over saturated, the adult market was basically untapped in the first and second world. This is a multi billion person market which could be exploited and mined for breath taking profits, while still expanding the youth market. And that’s exactly what happened.
In a direct way, this is just one of many consequences of ongoing censorship. The people whom had solutions were silenced. The people whom could have sounded the alarm did not, or if they did, not enough people were able to listen to them. They have been silenced or had their reach limited on the matter of vaccines for decades now. Most people are just now starting to understand, having had but a small glimpse into the scale of the fraud as they perform ‘independent covid research’. Companies and people whom would otherwise be held in check are now virtually above the law. Censorship is one of the most dangerous deceptive tools imaginable, it’s ability to be more destructive than war itself should not go un noticed. If you get too close to the truth they’ll give you a brand new run around and will continue to be in charge of the most important factor, time.
The very last place we turn to for health advice is the government. If you play their game, they win. We said no, we meant it. Stop pushing us around over vaccines and masks. No means no and it does not mean anything else. We opt out on principal because good ideas do not require force.
You don’t need to even understand one lick of science to be able to make an informed conclusion that there is fraud and there are deceptions, which is why big industry now constantly turns to mandates and silencing opposition. It plays out that way every damned time, which is why the founding fathers installed constitutional rights and declared no man can take these away. Restraints on governments are necessary to prevent this. Article I Section X. Pharmaceutical companies have been granted unconstitutional privileges of ‘Nobility’. They are now issuing letters of marque and reprisal to those whom do not buy their products and subscribe to their noble status which grants them control over our lives. They interfered with contracts on a broad scale currently and retroactively expost facto. Every single taxpayer funded ‘free’ vaccine came by way of coining counterfeit debt based fiat currency. They have aligned in confederation with state and federal government departments like.
The American public is not going to be able to dig themselves out of this problem with simple data extraction and explanation. We need a resurgence of liberty, and we all need to demand it right now. That is your path out, our constitutional rights. We do not need to justify why we said no. We do not need anyone’s permission to say no. We do not need to prove anything statistical or otherwise. We do not need to listen to these people, they are not in charge of us. Public health is a fallacy, individual health is the individuals responsibility. You’re going to have to opt out of the entire vaccination program until such time as these companies no longer have liability protection, or this expanded market base approach where all adults and all children are constantly coerced into taking vaccines will never ever end. Unless there is a radical change of mind set it will be easy for most to eventually accept this demand of adults, as they have long since acquiesced to that demand of mandatory vaccinations having been placed upon children. “I support vaccines, just not this particular vaccine.” Repeat after me until you too are able to believe; Safe and Effective.
Doesn’t our national anthem have words that say “land of the free and home of the brave”. Where are these people coming from that want to set up detention camps, or take away our 2nd Amend., establish regulated “free speech zones, put up checkpoints, teach CRT, eliminate free markets, tear up the Constitution, and on and on. Why would any rational person choose extremely restricted rights or no rights and material scarcity.
My wife is from Eastern Europe, she can tell you all about communism, it totally sucked. None, I mean zero individual rights, lousy medical care, poor quality food, needing permission to do anything, even to go to the next town over, poor quality housing, no right to own property, and standing in lines all day long for everything. Life was stifling and dreary, actually meaningless. Being anonymously accused of a crime was sufficient to be found guilty. One was constantly monitored and snitches were everywhere (snitches were rewarded some extra rations). The police came to schools or work places to order numbers of people to go perform other labor like dig up potatoes or put to work on a construction site, one had no choice. Any display of individualism was crushed.
If that’s what these losers want there are still a few countries where they can find their paradise.
And will they be sending rainbow warrior soy boys to round people up door to door. Not gonna happen Pal! Quit with the doom porn! This BS is falling apart faster than a made in china toy!
The answer to the fake pandemic is simple and it is laid out in Old Testament law. You isolate the sick, not the well.
Canadians are saying they are done with the metrosexual, diversity fruit loop agenda that has caused great income inequality, flooded the country with third world criminals, ruined once world-beating healthcare, and has destroyed the once-proud Canadian identity based around family and hearth.
I find myself at a local jail website, looking up SWIM.
As it turns out, it was originally built to intern Japanese.
They left uninteresting piles of debris, like the usual, illegal dumpsites, on a dirt road they built into the local mountainside above the city. It is still traveled, as a backroad.
The reprobate 99%’ers say you are making up conspiracy theories, though the establishment publishes it, formally, on the front page. The boxstore and drivethru district is their habitrail. Every news cycle starts at year zero. Four times a day, during the dinner hour.