“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.” –Thomas Paine, The American Crisis
As governments around the world begin to drop oppressive Covid-19 restrictions and mandates, it is a good time to reflect on the power of the people to enact change and the necessity of stopping tyranny in its tracks before it is too late.
Austria, which was the first country to attempt a Covid vaccine mandate, has suspended the mandate. New Zealand, whose PM Jacinda Ardern earned the nickname “the Wicked Witch of New Zealand” for her extreme Covid measures, is reportedly going to end its vaccine mandates. France, where the president once said of the unvaccinated he would be making their lives miserable and “limiting as much as possible their access to activities in social life,” is set to scrap mask and vaccine mandates. And while the Biden administration does not seem to have given up on the vaccine mandate idea altogether, many if not most local governments across the US have dropped both vaccine and mask mandates (even leftist-controlled places like New York). The UK, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, and Tanzania have reportedly removed all or almost all Covid mandates/restrictions.
There is some debate as to why these countries chose to end restrictions. I would guess that, for at least most of the countries backing down from mandates, elections are looming, popular sentiment is going more and more against mandates, and the governments of places where one cannot simply win an election entirely by cheating (which would sadly leave the US out) are probably realizing they have to give in a little. That is precisely my point in this article—around the world, the people spoke, and the government, grudgingly, angrily, reluctantly, had to listen.
The fight is not over, however. Tyrants rarely relinquish absolute power permanently, and the Davos elites have staked too much on their plan to remake the world to give up after just one round. There are hints of this; so, for instance, Austria has only suspended its vaccine mandate and said this was “not the last chapter.” And so, we the people must continue to fight. We must be ready to protest, to lose jobs, to lose friends, to risk even arrest and abuse to stand against tyranny.
There has never been a better time for personal action; or rather, there has never been a time when action is such a moral imperative. I have previously posited that true American individualism does not mean that every man has a right to be comfortable or to be left alone. True American individualism means that every man has an obligation to be a hero. While this may take different forms for everyone, it is nevertheless true—and it is merely the political or cultural application of Jesus’s command in the Gospel of Matthew, “Be you therefore perfect, as also your Heavenly Father is perfect.” There have not been, perhaps, such a fiercely individualistic and independent group of men in history as the American Revolutionaries; and yet they were willing to do and dare everything to win liberty not just for themselves, but for their families and communities.
To give an illustration of what I mean: following the Boston Tea Party before the American Revolution, the British planned to move the Boston customs house to Marblehead, Massachusetts, instead, which would have made Marblehead the “primary port of entry for all North American trade,” as historian Patrick K. O’Donnell describes in The Indispensables. The Marblehead Patriots decided rather to stand with Boston and continue their embargo on British goods; and, by doing so, the Marbleheaders gave a great expression of American individualism. How? Because Marblehead Patriots believed they had an obligation to turn down personal profit (and it would have been very profitable indeed for Marblehead) to support their fellow Patriots’ philosophy. The Marbleheaders did not say, “I agree with Boston, but after all it is none of my business, and at least it helps me.” Neither did they say, “How sad such a thing could happen, if only someone in the British government would do something about it.” They said, “We would rather go bankrupt with Boston than thrive at Boston’s expense.” They felt an imperative to support Boston by their own personal actions.
Which of us can say the same? How many times in my life I have not spoken the truth so I could keep a friend or placate an enemy! Almost everyone, no doubt, has at least one regret of that kind, particularly since the Covid plandemic began and it seemed as if compliance with tyranny and tacit endorsement of lies were necessary for survival. But that is precisely why the tyrannies of the Covid plandemic succeeded—until now. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fled in panic from his home because a group of truckers got together, honked horns, and set up bouncy castles. Why? Because Trudeau understood, what even perhaps the truckers’ supporters did not all understand, that tyranny is only possible so long as the oppressed submit to it. The vaccine passports were inescapable so long as people did not say, “I won’t have one.” The US school boards could only ensure schools would teach Critical Race Theory so long as parents remained willfully oblivious of their children’s curriculum. The elites and tyrants are mortally afraid that the people will one day realize they need not submit and simply say, “NO.”
And that is what we need to say. Will some of us be jailed? Will some of us possibly even be killed? There were two peaceful protestors killed on Jan. 6, 2021, and many others jailed and abused without being convicted. They were peaceful, and the law enforcement was not. That is, of course, a possibility each of us must face, that our constitutional, peaceful refusal to comply with tyranny may cause us a great deal of pain and trouble. But like the heroes of the Civil Rights era, we believe that justice and truth will triumph in the end, and we will not compromise our principles because the opposition is brutal and dishonest. The peaceful, charitable, but uncompromising witness of the early Christian martyrs and Apostles converted an empire. Do not underestimate the power of the people to refuse to comply.
