How to Apply the Precautionary Principle
Atlanta, GA
November 4, 2022
Imagine going to the doctor with unfamiliar chest pains. The physician hears your symptoms, drops everything, and immediately suggests open-heart surgery. Just to be safe.
You question the decision, and ask for some tests, additional data, or perhaps another opinion. You also try to inform him of other health issues and family history that might influence the recommendation.
But he quickly puts up his hand, cuts you off, and commands you to keep quiet. After all, he’s the expert, and this is an emergency. Who are you to offer input? You’re not a doctor. Just do what your told.
Yet you continue raising doubts. Impatient with your obstinance, he has you forcibly carried into the operating room, and strapped to the table. He pulls out the knives, and begins to cut.
Afterward, your initial pains are revealed to have been mere muscle spasms. They caused periodic discomfort, but nothing too serious. Yet now you’re in agony.
The surgery, which cost a fortune and caused severe complications you will never overcome, was completely unnecessary. It did extensive damage and no good.
The surgeon got paid. Handsomely. You, meanwhile, are bankrupt and debilitated. Recovery will take years, and may never be complete.
When you confront the culprit, he shrugs his shoulders. The doctor acknowledges mistakes were made, but that there were reasonable perspectives on both sides.
We were all “in the dark”, and dealing with unprecedented “uncertainty.” So we did what we could with the information we had. The “precautionary principle” demanded drastic action.
Sure, in hindsight we might’ve done things differently. But there were things we didn’t know during the initial diagnosis, so it’s unreasonable to hold each other accountable now.
The surgeon admits mistakes were made, but sees no point assigning blame. At this point, it’s best to forgive each other for ineffective actions we may have taken in the heat of the moment. Let’s let bygones be bygones, shall we?
How would most people respond to such self-serving claptrap? We’re about to find out, because it’s now on offer.
For two years, in defiance of all precedent and ample evidence, civilization was confined to a gurney, and dissected in a lab. While some tried to halt the procedure, most accommodated it by pumping the patient with propagandistic anesthesia. And the “public health” quacks who conducted this operation didn’t wield scalpels. They used chainsaws.
A few days ago, an infuriating article appeared in The Atlantic proposing we “declare a pandemic amnesty.” The author is Emily Oster, an Ivy League academic who epitomizes those who caused the problem.
She assumes that because during “the pandemic” we operated “in the dark”, all of us made mistakes for which its senseless to cast blame. The authorities did their best trying to preserve our health, so we shouldn’t dwell on any errors they might inadvertently have made. In this piece, Emily Oster has become Emily Litella. As she so magnanimously put it:
“The people who got it right, for whatever reason, may want to gloat. Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts….These discussions are heated, unpleasant and, ultimately, unproductive. In the face of so much uncertainty, getting something right had a hefty element of luck. And, similarly, getting something wrong wasn’t a moral failing. Treating pandemic choices as a scorecard on which some people racked up more points than others is preventing us from moving forward.”
Wonder which side of “the scorecard” Ms. Oster is on, and why such conciliation wasn’t forthcoming during the last couple years?
The carnage the covid cult inflicted on society was predictable, and predicted. Many of us warned that shutting schools, closing businesses, confining elders, prohibiting gatherings, and imposing dystopian mandates while inducing panic would have devastating consequences for a functioning society. It wasn’t “luck” that enabled us to foresee this. It was common sense.
Despite early awareness that children and anyone not obese, severely ill, or very old was at negligible risk of dying from covid, top-down, one-size fits medical prescriptions and government restrictions were imposed on everyone.
Personal value judgments, health considerations, and risk assessments were forbidden. After all, we had to “trust the experts” and “follow the Science”…right off a cliff.
Oster now acknowledges there were questions about the “vaccines” when they were initially rolled out. Of course, many had questions at the time, but they weren’t allowed to be asked. If they did, they were demonized, denigrated, or de-platformed.
Instead, we were repeatedly and robotically assured the shots were “safe and effective”, that they would prevent infection and stop spread. Shortly thereafter, as “breakthrough” cases proliferated and the virus treated vaccinated gatherings the way mosquitoes treat a puddle, we learned this obviously wasn’t true.
Still, despite real data and actual science, we were told unequivocally to “protect each other” by taking the shots. And, while Ms. Oster tells us to move on, this corrupt campaign continues today. Just last week, despite kids being at almost no risk from covid, the CDC recommended these questionable concoctions…and their “boosters”…be added to childhood vaccination schedule!
Yet Oster reassures us that any “missteps” regarding vaccines aren’t “nefarious”. They’re merely the unavoidable result of “uncertainty.” Given the aggressiveness of the vaccination effort and the financial incentives of those pushing these products, that’s doubtful…if not laughable. But one “certainty” is that the response to those who declined injection was “nefarious”, and it was not a “misstep.” It was intentional, and orchestrated from the top.
Rather than step back and reassess their recommendations based on new evidence that they were flawed, the Covid Regime doubled-down. And as reluctance rose, their tolerance fell. By last summer, every American was expected to take the serum, initially by persuasion, then thru coercion, eventually by compulsion. And there was ferocious hostility toward anyone who continued to resist.
Those who didn’t consume the concoctions were to be banished from society. Many were dismissed from jobs, prohibited from travel, excluded by law from public places or private venues, and told they’d be refused or de-prioritized for medical care. Some suggested banning them from grocery stores or receiving food delivery.
Disturbingly, large proportions of the population cheered these abominations. Many “educated” people who now want us to forget these affronts found them perfectly reasonable, and disparaged or dissociated themselves from anyone who didn’t.
Friends were lost, families severed, and careers destroyed because people had the temerity to question obvious absurdities. They were demonized for wanting to retain their humanity, see people in person, expose their face, shake hands, exchange hugs, and decline a drug.
That “the authorities” would prohibit these basic liberties in a “free” society was intolerable at any time. But after months of political panic and media-manufactured madness that turned dissenters into vermin and neighbors into snitches, it became unforgivable.
The medical-industrial complex manipulated data, censored opinions, and lied thru their teeth. College kids were forced from beaches, and mothers were arrested for taking their kids to a playground. Politicians presumed to tell us on a daily basis whether we could leave our homes, and which places we’d be allowed to go. Some governors told residents how many people they could invite to their homes, whether they should sit inside or out, and how far apart they should be.
This calamity was caused by totalitarian politicians, a compliant media, and acolytes of “the Science”. Emily Oster would have us believe that “on every topic, someone was eventually proved right, and someone else was proved wrong”.
But that’s not true. Regarding who is accountable for this unprecedented disaster, we are not “all in this together.” Throughout this fiasco, one side has been overwhelmingly right, and the other catastrophically wrong. And they weren’t just “wrong”; they were wicked. It’s no surprise which of those wants us all to wipe our hands, withhold blame, and move along.
What happened should never be forgotten. Nor should those who did it, or abetted it.
Lockdowns were iniquitous. “Social distancing” was a farce. Schools shutdowns were a disaster. Church closures were scandalous. Shuttering businesses was insidious. Mandatory masking was an outrage. Compulsory medication was criminal. And the people who imposed these atrocities should be brought to trial and go to jail.
This was the greatest crime perpetrated on the American people in our lifetimes, and it wasn’t required by the precautionary principle. That principle doesn’t require destructive actions that do extensive damage. It also doesn’t warrant washing our hands and moving along.
What it does demand are public apologies, criminal trials, and personal accountability. And to make enduring examples of the perpetrators, so that others who are lured to power are never tempted to try this again.
JD
