{"id":5002,"date":"2020-11-28T06:20:38","date_gmt":"2020-11-28T11:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=5002"},"modified":"2020-11-28T06:20:38","modified_gmt":"2020-11-28T11:20:38","slug":"roussins-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=5002","title":{"rendered":"Roussin\u2019s Victims"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Throne, Altar, Liberty\n<\/a>\n<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The Canadian Red Ensign<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Thursday, November 26, 2020<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\nRoussin\u2019s Victims\n<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The province of Manitoba in the Dominion of Canada, one of Her\nMajesty Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s Commonwealth Realms, is my home.   We\nhave seen two types of protests directed against the provincial government in\nrecent months, both objecting to the province\u2019s response to the spread of the\nWuhan bat flu.   One type of protest, such as that which took place\nin Steinbach on the 14th<\/sup> of November, expresses opposition to\nthe public health orders as trampling all over our basic freedoms of\nassociation, assembly and religion and our prescriptive and constitutional\ncivil rights.   The other type of protest expressed the views of the\nsocialist opposition party, its leader Wab Kinew and his health critic, and\ntheir far left echo chamber in the media which features such automatons as the\nCBC\u2019s Bartley Kives and the Winnipeg Free Press<\/em>\u2019s Dan Lett and Ryan\nThorpe.   Those involved in this type of protest take the position that the\ngovernment\u2019s public health orders have been too few, too light, and too slowly\nenacted, and that the government by not imposing a harsh lockdown the moment\nthe case numbers started to rise in the fall, is responsible for all the deaths\nwe have seen since September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My sympathies are entirely with the first group of protesters, as\nanyone who has read a word I have previously written on the subject already\nknows.   I should say that my sympathies are with the protesters’ basic position.   I don\u2019t much care for the rhetoric of civil\ndisobedience, rebellion, and populism in which that position is often expressed\nat those protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the second group of protesters are certainly entitled to\ntheir opinion and the free expression of the same, a freedom that I note many\nif not most of them would prefer to deny to me and others who take my side of\nthe issue, their position is easily debunked from an ethical point of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a virus is spreading, government is not required to do\neverything in its power to slow or stop the spread.   Indeed, it has\na moral obligation NOT to do everything in its power to slow or stop the spread\nof the virus.   This is because the government has the power to do\ntremendous evil as well as good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us agree that saving lives that are at risk from the virus is\nin itself a good and worthy goal.   Stopping and slowing the spread\nof the virus may be a means to that end, but whether it is a good means to a\ngood end or a bad means to a good end is debatable.  Slowing the spread of\nthe virus increases the total length of the pandemic, stretching out the time\nwe have to deal with this plague over a much longer period than would otherwise\nbe the case.   That can hardly be regarded as desirable in\nitself.   Quite the contrary in fact.   Whether this is an\nacceptable evil, worth tolerating in order to achieve the end of lives saved,\ndepends upon a couple of considerations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First it depends upon the effectiveness of the method of slowing\nthe spread of the virus in saving lives.   If the method is not\neffective, then the evil of artificially lengthening the period of the pandemic\nis much less tolerable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second it depends upon the means whereby the stopping or slowing\nof the virus, considered as an end itself, is to be accomplished.  \nIf those means are themselves bad, this compounds the evil of stretching out\nthe pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither of these considerations provides much in the way of\nsupport for concluding that a longer pandemic is an evil made tolerable by a\ngood end, such as saving lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With regards to the first consideration, it is by no means clear\nthat any lives have been saved in this way at all.  Indeed, at the\nbeginning of the first lockdown, back when everyone was repeating the phrase\n\u201cflatten the curve\u201d ad naseum, the experts advising this strategy told us that\nit would not decrease the total lives lost  but merely spread them out so\nthat the hospitals would not be overwhelmed at once.   This, in my\nopinion at least, was not nearly as desirable an end as saving lives and not\none sufficient to make the lockdown measures acceptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This brings us to our second criteria.   The means by\nwhich our government health officials have tried to slow or stop the spread of\nthe virus are neither morally neutral nor positively good.   On the\ncontrary, they are positively evil.  They inflict all sorts of unnecessary\nmisery upon people.  Advocates of the lockdown method sometimes maintain\nthat the damage inflicted is merely economic and therefore \u201cworth it\u201d to save\nlives.   This would be a dubious conclusion even if the premise were\nvalid.   The premise is not valid, however, and it is highly unlikely\nthat those who state it seriously believe what they are saying.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telling people to stay home and avoid all contact with other\npeople does not just hurt people financially, although it certainly does that\nif their business is forced to close or their job is deemed by some bureaucrat\nto be \u201cnon-essential\u201d.  It forces people to act against their nature as\nsocial beings, deprives them of social contact which is essential to their\npsychological and spiritual wellbeing, which are in turn essential to their physical\nwellbeing.   Mens sana in corpore sano<\/em>.   The longer people\nare deprived of social contact, the more loneliness and a sense of isolation\nwill erode away at their mental health.   Phone, e-mail, and even\nvideo chat, are not adequate substitutes for in-person social contact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of this was true of the first lockdown in the spring but it is\nthat much more true with regards to the second lockdowns that are now being\nimposed.   The first lockdown was bad enough, but the second\nlockdown, imposed for at least a month, coming right before Christmas in the same\nyear as the first, will be certain to pile a sense of hopelessness and despair\non top of the inevitable loneliness and isolation.  The government has\nkept liquor stores and marijuana vendors open, even though the combination of\nalcohol and pot with hopelessness, loneliness, and despair is a recipe for\nself-destructive behaviour, while ordering all the churches, which offer, among\nother things, hope, to close.    This is evil of truly monstrous\nproportions.    It can only lead to death \u2013 whether by suicide,\naddictive self-destruction, or just plain heart brokenness.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The protesters who accuse Brian Pallister and the government he\nleads of murder for having re-opened our economy from the first lockdown and\nnot having imposed a second one right away when the cases began to rise are\nwrong-headed about the matter as they, generally being leftists, are\nwrong-headed about everything.   The government does not become\nmorally culpable for deaths because it refrains from taking actions which are\nextremely morally wrong in themselves in order to achieve the goal of saving\nlives.   Not imposing a draconian lockdown does not translate into\nthe murder of those for whom the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus becomes\none health complication too many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where Pallister does bear moral culpability for deaths is with\nregards to all the people who will kill themselves, or perhaps snap and kill\nothers, drink themselves to death or accomplish the same with drugs, or simply\ngive up on life in hopeless gloom and despair because he has allowed Brent\nRoussin, once again, to impose these totalitarian public health orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roussin has been going on television as of late, showing pictures\nof people who have died, and lecturing Manitobans on how these are not just\nnumbers but people.   This is a kind of sleight-of-hand, by which he\nhopes to distract the public from all the harm he is actively causing, and he\nknows full well that lockdowns are themselves destructive and lethal for he\nadmitted as much a couple of months ago thus compounding his guilt now, by\nmanipulating their emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does Roussin realize that this street runs both ways?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about the young man, Roussin, who would otherwise have had\ndecades of life ahead of him, much more than those whose deaths you have been\nexploiting to justify your bad decisions, but who killed himself because you\ncancelled his job as “non-essential”, took away  his social\nlife, and left him with the prospect of long-term isolation?   Do you\nnot realize that he is a person as well?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, those who die from the lockdown may very well turn out to outnumber by far those who succumb to the bat flu.\u00a0 \u00a0In which case all that Roussin will have accomplished will have been to exchange a smaller number of deaths for which he would not have been morally responsible for a larger number of deaths that leave his hands permanently stained with blood. Posted by Gerry T. Neal <\/a> at 1:30 AM<\/abbr><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Labels: addiction<\/a>, Bartley Kives<\/a>, Brent Roussin<\/a>, Brian Pallister<\/a>, CBC<\/a>, COVID-19<\/a>, Dan Lett<\/a>, despair<\/a>, hope<\/a>, lockdowns<\/a>, Manitoba<\/a>, Ryan Thorpe<\/a>, suicide<\/a>, Wab Kinew<\/a>, Winnipeg Free Press<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2 comments:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
  1. Bruce Charlton<\/a>November 26, 2020 at 4:41 AM<\/a>“In the end, those who die from the lockdown may very well turn out to outnumber by far those who succumb to the bat flu. “

    From\n what I can tell from the numbers William Briggs provides, this point \nhas already, several months since, been surpassed in the UK; and the \ntoll continues to mount.

    Plus the severity of intense and \nchronic human misery – perhaps especially nasty among children, teens \nand young adults – is clearly appalling but the extent is only known to \nthe immediate circle of neighbours and family.

    …As would be \nexpected from an illness with such a modest mortality rate – even \naccepting all the inflated and false counting – such as including all \ninfluenza deaths, and many other dishonest methods to numerous to list \nthe inflated-rate seems to be considerably less than 1 in a 1000 and \nvery concentrated among the old and already ill who would have a short \nlife expectancy anyway.

    (The non-Christian’s terror of his own \ndeath, and the desire to delay it a short while at any price, has a lot \nto do with this.)

    Here in the UK many of the most basic aspects \nof medical care, such as actually meeting a doctor, diagnosing and \ntreating lethal cancers etc, have been almost abandoned.

    However,\n nonetheless, there is a widespread passive acceptance and even embrace \nof the response – and there is no doubt that poeple-as-a-whole deserve \nwhat they are getting – since they keep asking for more of the same; and\n most of those who don’t like it have ne better justification for their \nobjection than hedonism – which does not sustain courage, and offers no \nmotivating alternative.

    This has been long coming, long \nbuilding (pervasive and worsening sub-fertility among the most \nintelligent, wealthy and high status people being an index) – but we are\n now seeing an accelerating process of civilizational suicide – caused, \nobviously, by the denial of God (denial of any God – not only the true \nGod).

    Even without our extraordinarily evil and psychopathic \nglobal leadership our civilization would be doomed (as I wrote in \nThought Prison, 2011) – just more slowly than is happening now

    Men\n cannot live without God\/s – even at the basic biological level; since \nall human societies evolved with religions, and depend upon religion for\n much that is basic to survival.     Reply<\/a>Replies<\/a>
    1. Gerry T. Neal<\/a>November 27, 2020 at 6:37 AM<\/a>Bruce,\n that we have long ago passed the point where the numbers dead from the \nlockdowns exceeds those dead from the virus is my understanding as well.\n I worded it more cautiously here because I was focusing on the local \nsituation in Manitoba where the statistics about deaths from causes such\n as suicide for this year are suspiciously difficult to obtain.

      We\n have the same situation with regards to basic medical care here. My \nfather has had to come into Winnipeg annually to see specialists for \nseveral years now, but both visits were cancelled this year. One of \nthe specialists was able to do a kind of online videochat examination \nthrough the small rural hospital closest to him, but the other just \npostponed the visit since it has to do with an eye condition that \nrequires an in-person examination. Someone I know who had been waiting\n for important surgery for years which had finally been scheduled had it\n postponed due to the virus. I could mention several other specific \nexamples of this sort.<\/li><\/ol><\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Throne, Altar, Liberty The Canadian Red Ensign Thursday, November 26, 2020 Roussin\u2019s Victims The province of Manitoba in the Dominion of Canada, one of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s Commonwealth Realms, is my home.   We have seen two types of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2636,2637,2498,1707,43,2136,2640,2639,1121,2642,2609,2638,2641,2643,2644,1180],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5002"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5005,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5002\/revisions\/5005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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