TYING UP THE TYRANTS
As the peculiar nature of Covid19 policy worldwide goes from bad science via blinkered surreality along the back roads to technocratic Hell, I detect the usual social media communards jostling for position to be first out onto the streets and barricades. Always assuming, of course there’s nothing good on Netflix.
Their protestations of revolutionary fervour would be genuinely funny if the irony was intended; as it is, they come across as the triumph of fantasy over experience. “The guilty ones shall be held to account”, “There will be blood on the streets”, “Westminster must be cleared out once and for all”, and even “The days of final justice are upon us”. One is put in mind of some mad old crone on Up Pompei throwing sticks in the air, and – as they clatter to the ground – warning Frankie Howerd that “There will be more men queer/by the turn of the Year”…thus evoking one of his “Oooogh, wull, yuss, an’ not before time, missus”.
Tony Blair was going to jail for Iraqi war crimes. George Osborne would be in the tumbril on his way to Madame la Guillotine for his theft of billions from Waspi pensioners. Soon it would be curtains for Murdoch and his Newscorp hackers. It was a hail of bullets at dawn for every one of the Commons MPs undermining the Brexit referendum result. Theresa May would be burnt at the stake for her diluted Brino, while Olly Robbins would be mutilated by septaguanarian mobs of fihermen brought down specially from Hull. Let’s get the SAS dropped into Brussels and kidnap everyone from von der Leyen and Macron to Barnier. And now, of course, nothing less than hung, drawn and quartered will do for Hancock, Whitty, Vallance, Horby and the Biowarfare bombast Sir Mark Sedwill.
Nothing like that is ever likely to happen, because the Establishment is no longer scared of the Citizen.
There’s little doubt that when, roughly four years ago, it was glaringly obvious every élite in Britain from the Scottish National Party to the UK Treasury was plotting a Rejoin campaign, the 0.1 per cent did get a little flustered by the ferocity of deadly threats from the armchair anarchists. There were dark mutterings in shadowy Westminster corridors about regulation of hate speech; such censorious ideas are not going to go away.
Problem is, if you make threats of disobedience, and then settle down for another season of The Royals Downton Abbey Camomile Lawn Saga, chances are this will give off the wrong signals to those making limp claims to being in charge of events. To paraphrase the unforgettable Lou Reed, “Somewhere, a Prime Minister is laughing ’til he wets his pants”. They will look at the net outcome from the citizenry, and observe with a giggling whisper, “Buzz like a hornet, sting like a butterfly”.
Every parent knows only too well that the “I shan’t tell you again” approach without action is a cul de sac of infinite arrogant disrespect. Corporal punishment is never necessary, but firm removal of privileges (without back-sliding) is an essential part of the socialisation process. Nobody in their right mind wants the children to be scared of them: the kids just have to grasp that you mean what you say.
With the elected, bureaucratic and unelected State, the need is somewhat different – albeit profoundly sad: only by scaring the bejezus out of these puffed-up poltroons will we get any appropriate action from them. I’m a pacifist, but removal of privilege still applies: having their power neutered is the fate they fear the most. Pocket money brings access to the sweetie shop, and removal of said funds means no sweeties. I’m skating on the thin ice of the Law here, but I’m sure you know what I mean
Last Saturday, a number of ordinary, peaceful and justifiably disgusted Brits held an enormous and entirely peaceful demonstration in London. Antifa, BLM and Momentum were weeded out by organisers, and kept well away. Yesterday in Bristol, elements of the destructive Left were back in action, and the result was brutal repression – precisely what they wanted.
In fact, both actions were pointless. I admire and stand with the London demonstrators, but both government and media ignored them. And I abhor the antics of Labour’s fascist Left, because they want chaos, confusion and civil war…. they knowing perfectly well that they will never attract genuine democrats to vote for them at the ballot box.
We have seen since the measures “against Covid19” began how eager all wannabe Imporatium from Biden via Macron to Johnson were to get large gatherings banned. Whether it was Biden and Trumpers, Macron and the Gilets Jaunes or Johnson ordering riot gear and water cannons when he was London Mayor, all these people have form. They love to silence critics.
If you like, for me this is becoming a case of “show not tell”: don’t keep telling the State that you’ll torch their houses (you’ll wind up in jail) and don’t keep turning up to demos they’ll ignore. Don’t talk about violence, do something to starve the beast.
There is no shortage of ways to engage in civil disobedience – if enough of us feel that the rules are daft, unfair, illiberal or in other ways an attack on our Civil Rights. The underlying principles remain the same: cause the State enormous inconvenience, show your strength at by-elections, break the rules restricting us, eschew violence, cut off Party money-supplies and above all, don’t give the buggers any warning.
While supporting and advising various causes over the last sixteen years – the Waspi women, Hacked Off, Leave EU, false celeb paedophile accusations by the Met Police, Green emisssion cover-ups, a Better Withdrawal Deal, or those arguing against virus hype, Pharma funding and ruinous lockdown – Leave EU has been the only real win.
Why? Because the Brexit majority took them by surprise, the movement was united across Parties – and because citizens had an easy, highly convenient weapon – the ballot box.
When it comes to freedom from our own government (rather than the bureaufascists in Brussels) we don’t have those advantages. I have lost faith in the ability of leading libertarian writers, indie news websites and small new Parties to present a unified Front against the Reset/Covid19/vaccination threat to global free speech. As I wrote last week, I genuinely think this disobedience army can only benefit by being a Michael Caine-free zone.
But I estimate that we number 9.5 – 10 million in the UK at the grassroots level, and a further 40 million in the US. They can’t put us all in jail.
John Ward is frustrated on many levels – legal, constitutional, presentational, skeletal, technological, inspirational, intestinal, bronchial but chiefly, sexual.
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