I ask you to compare the following two videos, two individuals, two “teams”. I will not make any comments or draw any conclusions from this. This is for you alone, to see what differences/contrast you can discern and how this may affect your perception of the political reality.
Team A: https://youtu.be/3lb7J3_8nas?t=1148
Team B: https://news.1rj.ru/str/reignitedemocracyaustralia/4127
Team A: https://youtu.be/3lb7J3_8nas?t=1148
Team B: https://news.1rj.ru/str/reignitedemocracyaustralia/4127
It is astounding that the strongest and simplest argument against vaccine mandates, that they violate the right to life of some people for the alleged benefit of the majority, is not used by the professional defenders of human rights. Instead, they focus on minor technicalities, which are always vulnerable to differences of legal opinion: https://news.1rj.ru/str/c/1495722711/7863
We are Free to think, but nobody can compel us to think rationally, this is something we must earn ourselves. Some help in this regard is possible; consistent, calm, logical communisation, arguments made in good faith, are a tide that raises all boats. On the other hand, irrational thought, which is to say ‘non-sense’, is the limit of human freedom, the ultimate destroyer of meaning and being. If we can learn (and assist others as much as possible) to think more in compliance with the 3 laws of thought, then the scope of our freedom, indeed the scope of our Reality, will expand. The boundaries of our freedom are within ourselves; we project them on the world.
I started reading Henry Kissinger’s (apparently unpublished) undergraduate thesis, completed when he was 27 years old. For anyone who is serious about politics (or “freedom” as a moral principle) it is a must read. https://archive.org/details/HenryAKissingerTheMeaningOfHistoryReflectionsOnSpenglerToynbeeAndKant/page/n7/mode/2up
Internet Archive
Henry A Kissinger The Meaning Of History Reflections On Spengler, Toynbee, And Kant : Henry Kissinger : Free Download, Borrow,…
Undergraduate or graduate thesis from Henry Kissinger
“Kill your children and yourself to punish Putin. He will not survive without western energy consumers.” This is the logic of the sanctions against Russia. Next in the news: clinical trials show that lethal injection kills AIDS!
Socialists imagine (and imply, falsely) that their vulgar, materialistic, animalistic conception of “wellbeing” is desirable to all humans. The same fallacy is now reproduced under the the guise of Equity, Inclusiveness, Diversity.
The Decline of the West.
Experts may have reached the agreement, following the cultural theory of Oswald Spengler, that Western civilisation, now including Russia, Japan and China, like every great civilisation of the past, has entered the final stage of the historical cycle: its inevitable collapse. They therefore feel justified in performing a “controlled demolition” of the West, sacrifice as many lives as necessary, in order to preserve themselves and salvage as much of the cultural advances as possible by introducing systemic “shocks” by means of which to forcibly transform the West to a different cultural form. They believe that without their intervention the outcome would be apocalyptic, posing an existential threat to the entire human race, therefore ‘all means are morally justified’.
Oswald Spangler theorised that Western rationality has displaced the ‘spiritual’ process of Becoming with the rational deconstruction and critique of Being, which is in essence nihilistic and amounts to cultural decline and death. I have argued elsewhere that rationality mst be reconciled with continuous becoming, that rationality entails becoming, since our ultimate commitment to self-worth as conscious, rational agents also commits us to pursuing higher degrees of rational consciousness, to the transcendence of our Being towards the ideal of personhood we used to call God: a perfectly self-integrated being. The strategic cultural “shocks” of the Great Reset, the (artificial) tribulations of war, tempest, pestilence and famine, may have been designed precisely to achieve this hopeful outcome, to compel us through suffering to pursue what rationality demands: becoming. Does this not resonate with the words of Henry Kissinger (in 1958), a student of Spangler, that the West must “go on a spiritual offensive”, undergo “a spiritual revolution” to “liberate our freedom”, because freedom itself is revolutionary?
The crucial insight is that a culture cannot be “reset” to an earlier state of consciousness, that the kind of becoming that characterised our pre-rational cultural stages is no longer possible because the insights that we have historically integrated into our being cannot be undone, cannot be erased by anything apart from mutual slaughter and death. The path of transcendence is therefore the only viable solution to this hypothetical problem.
Experts may have reached the agreement, following the cultural theory of Oswald Spengler, that Western civilisation, now including Russia, Japan and China, like every great civilisation of the past, has entered the final stage of the historical cycle: its inevitable collapse. They therefore feel justified in performing a “controlled demolition” of the West, sacrifice as many lives as necessary, in order to preserve themselves and salvage as much of the cultural advances as possible by introducing systemic “shocks” by means of which to forcibly transform the West to a different cultural form. They believe that without their intervention the outcome would be apocalyptic, posing an existential threat to the entire human race, therefore ‘all means are morally justified’.
Oswald Spangler theorised that Western rationality has displaced the ‘spiritual’ process of Becoming with the rational deconstruction and critique of Being, which is in essence nihilistic and amounts to cultural decline and death. I have argued elsewhere that rationality mst be reconciled with continuous becoming, that rationality entails becoming, since our ultimate commitment to self-worth as conscious, rational agents also commits us to pursuing higher degrees of rational consciousness, to the transcendence of our Being towards the ideal of personhood we used to call God: a perfectly self-integrated being. The strategic cultural “shocks” of the Great Reset, the (artificial) tribulations of war, tempest, pestilence and famine, may have been designed precisely to achieve this hopeful outcome, to compel us through suffering to pursue what rationality demands: becoming. Does this not resonate with the words of Henry Kissinger (in 1958), a student of Spangler, that the West must “go on a spiritual offensive”, undergo “a spiritual revolution” to “liberate our freedom”, because freedom itself is revolutionary?
The crucial insight is that a culture cannot be “reset” to an earlier state of consciousness, that the kind of becoming that characterised our pre-rational cultural stages is no longer possible because the insights that we have historically integrated into our being cannot be undone, cannot be erased by anything apart from mutual slaughter and death. The path of transcendence is therefore the only viable solution to this hypothetical problem.
Randomised Controlled Studies RCT have only two causal alternatives: intervention vs. non-intervention (‘control’). If more people died in the intervention group vs non-intervention, this difference must be counted as CAUSED by the intervention. It wouldn’t matter in a drug study if all the extra deaths in the intervention arm occurred in car accidents; the RCT protocol entails that those car accidents were caused by the drug. So if a researcher would try to dismiss those car accident deaths as caused not by the drug but by bad luck (or anything else), he would be breaking the RCT protocol and it would no longer be a randomised controlled study. This is precisely what Pfizer did in the Covid vaccine clinical trials, they just deemed all the deaths in the intervention arm as ‘not caused by the vaccine’. At the most they could argue that the mortality results were not ‘statistically significant’, in which case they would be admitting to having no evidence either way.
Forwarded from Normal (Michael Kowalik)
My Letter to Vice-Chancellor of the Universty of Queensland (14.12.2021)
Dear Prof. Terry,
I am a philosopher of ethics and an expert on vaccine mandates. I have recently published in the BMJ on this topic: https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2021/02/25/medethics-2020-107026. I understand that The University of Queensland is considering imposing mandatory vaccination for employees and students.
I want to bring to your attention the following ethical and, by implication, legal issues associated with vaccine mandates:
1. Vaccine mandates imply that all humans are born in a defective, inherently harmful state that must be biotechnologically augmented to allow their unrestricted participation in society, and this constitutes discrimination on the basis of healthy, innate characteristics of the human race.
2. Medical consent must be free - not coerced - in order to be valid. Any discrimination against the unvaccinated is economic or social opportunity coercion, precluding the possibility of valid medical consent. The right to free, uncoerced medical consent is not negotiable, because without it we have no rights at all; every other right can be subverted by medical coercion.
3. Covid vaccines are known to occasionally cause deaths of healthy people. When an employee is required to receive Covid vaccination as a condition of employment, that employee is economically coerced to participate in an activity where some percentage of employees are expected to die ‘in the course of employment’ as a direct result of the mandated activity. This goes against the fundamental principles of medical ethics and workplace safety. It may be objected that Covid-19 also kills people, but these two categories of deaths are not ethically equivalent. Infection with SARS-CoV-2 is not mandated, whereas deaths resulting from mandatory vaccination are mandated deaths, a legalised killing of some people for the prospective benefit of the majority.
Critically, any discrimination against the unvaccinated (or a privileged treatment of the vaccinated) amounts to a violation of the right to life, because a small percentage of students and employees are expected to die as a result of this coercive treatment. I believe we agree that the right to life must not be violated, in which case the proposed mandate is inconsistent with the fundamental moral commitments of The University of Queensland. I anticipate that Covid vaccination mandates will have serious legal consequences in the near future.
Regards,
Michael Kowalik
Dear Prof. Terry,
I am a philosopher of ethics and an expert on vaccine mandates. I have recently published in the BMJ on this topic: https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2021/02/25/medethics-2020-107026. I understand that The University of Queensland is considering imposing mandatory vaccination for employees and students.
I want to bring to your attention the following ethical and, by implication, legal issues associated with vaccine mandates:
1. Vaccine mandates imply that all humans are born in a defective, inherently harmful state that must be biotechnologically augmented to allow their unrestricted participation in society, and this constitutes discrimination on the basis of healthy, innate characteristics of the human race.
2. Medical consent must be free - not coerced - in order to be valid. Any discrimination against the unvaccinated is economic or social opportunity coercion, precluding the possibility of valid medical consent. The right to free, uncoerced medical consent is not negotiable, because without it we have no rights at all; every other right can be subverted by medical coercion.
3. Covid vaccines are known to occasionally cause deaths of healthy people. When an employee is required to receive Covid vaccination as a condition of employment, that employee is economically coerced to participate in an activity where some percentage of employees are expected to die ‘in the course of employment’ as a direct result of the mandated activity. This goes against the fundamental principles of medical ethics and workplace safety. It may be objected that Covid-19 also kills people, but these two categories of deaths are not ethically equivalent. Infection with SARS-CoV-2 is not mandated, whereas deaths resulting from mandatory vaccination are mandated deaths, a legalised killing of some people for the prospective benefit of the majority.
Critically, any discrimination against the unvaccinated (or a privileged treatment of the vaccinated) amounts to a violation of the right to life, because a small percentage of students and employees are expected to die as a result of this coercive treatment. I believe we agree that the right to life must not be violated, in which case the proposed mandate is inconsistent with the fundamental moral commitments of The University of Queensland. I anticipate that Covid vaccination mandates will have serious legal consequences in the near future.
Regards,
Michael Kowalik
My submission to “Public hearings regarding a new international instrument on pandemic preparedness and response” (World Health Organisation) 13.04.2022
https://inb.who.int/home/written-submissions
I am a philosopher of ethics and an expert on vaccine mandates: https://jme.bmj.com/content/48/4/240
I submit, on the following grounds, that the new international instrument must explicitly prohibit any discrimination on the basis of vaccination status.
1. Vaccine mandates imply that all humans are born in a defective, inherently harmful state that must be biotechnologically augmented to allow our unrestricted participation in society, and this constitutes discrimination on the basis of healthy, innate characteristics of the human race.
2. Discrimination against the unvaccinated denies the right to free medical consent. This must not be allowed under any circumstances, because without the right to free medical consent we have no rights at all; every other right can be subverted by medical coercion.
3. Vaccines are known to occasionally cause deaths of healthy people. Discrimination against the unvaccinated amounts to a violation of the right to life, because a small percentage of the targeted individuals are expected to die as a result of this coercive treatment. It may be objected that viruses also kill people, but these two categories of deaths are not ethically equivalent. Infection with viruses is not mandated, whereas deaths resulting from mandatory vaccination are mandated deaths, a legalised killing of some people for the prospective benefit of the majority.
I believe we agree that the right to life must not be violated, in which case vaccine mandates are inconsistent with the fundamental moral commitments of The WHO.
https://inb.who.int/home/written-submissions
I am a philosopher of ethics and an expert on vaccine mandates: https://jme.bmj.com/content/48/4/240
I submit, on the following grounds, that the new international instrument must explicitly prohibit any discrimination on the basis of vaccination status.
1. Vaccine mandates imply that all humans are born in a defective, inherently harmful state that must be biotechnologically augmented to allow our unrestricted participation in society, and this constitutes discrimination on the basis of healthy, innate characteristics of the human race.
2. Discrimination against the unvaccinated denies the right to free medical consent. This must not be allowed under any circumstances, because without the right to free medical consent we have no rights at all; every other right can be subverted by medical coercion.
3. Vaccines are known to occasionally cause deaths of healthy people. Discrimination against the unvaccinated amounts to a violation of the right to life, because a small percentage of the targeted individuals are expected to die as a result of this coercive treatment. It may be objected that viruses also kill people, but these two categories of deaths are not ethically equivalent. Infection with viruses is not mandated, whereas deaths resulting from mandatory vaccination are mandated deaths, a legalised killing of some people for the prospective benefit of the majority.
I believe we agree that the right to life must not be violated, in which case vaccine mandates are inconsistent with the fundamental moral commitments of The WHO.
The Weight of the Vote.
If you vote, you agree to authorise someone else to order you around, in the hope that this largely unknown to you person will order everyone else to do what you want them to do.
If you refuse to vote, other people may still choose someone largely unknown to them to order you around, but the situation is now morally different; you did not authorise anyone to order others around in the hope that they will be forced to do what you want them to do.
People sometimes do bad things, and it is morally permissible to prevent people doing bad things to you. Therefore, it may be morally permissible to authorise someone to order people around insofar as the exercise of authority is limited to preventing people doing bad things to others.
On the other hand, if we authorise someone to order everyone around to stop people doing bad things, but we do not possess the knowledge of what ‘bad things’ objectively are, then it may not be morally permissible or rational to authorise someone to order people around on those indeterminate grounds.
Furthermore, if we authorise someone to order everyone around to stop people doing bad things, but we do not have the authority to prevent that someone from doing bad things themselves, then it may not be morally permissible or rational to authorise anyone to order everyone around to stop people doing bad things.
If the only legitimate authority is to do what is objectively right, then voting is at best superfluous, because every person already has the moral authority to do what is morally right, and no authority, under any circumstances, to do what is morally wrong. We must therefore understand voting (for representation) as an attempt to legitimise what is morally wrong.
If you vote, you agree to authorise someone else to order you around, in the hope that this largely unknown to you person will order everyone else to do what you want them to do.
If you refuse to vote, other people may still choose someone largely unknown to them to order you around, but the situation is now morally different; you did not authorise anyone to order others around in the hope that they will be forced to do what you want them to do.
People sometimes do bad things, and it is morally permissible to prevent people doing bad things to you. Therefore, it may be morally permissible to authorise someone to order people around insofar as the exercise of authority is limited to preventing people doing bad things to others.
On the other hand, if we authorise someone to order everyone around to stop people doing bad things, but we do not possess the knowledge of what ‘bad things’ objectively are, then it may not be morally permissible or rational to authorise someone to order people around on those indeterminate grounds.
Furthermore, if we authorise someone to order everyone around to stop people doing bad things, but we do not have the authority to prevent that someone from doing bad things themselves, then it may not be morally permissible or rational to authorise anyone to order everyone around to stop people doing bad things.
If the only legitimate authority is to do what is objectively right, then voting is at best superfluous, because every person already has the moral authority to do what is morally right, and no authority, under any circumstances, to do what is morally wrong. We must therefore understand voting (for representation) as an attempt to legitimise what is morally wrong.
On the distinction between criticism of ideology vs criticism of ethnicity of the ideologue
The following article (just a random example, over the years I have seen many of these, and worse) alleges that Bolshevism was driven mostly by people of Jewish ethnicity or ancestry, and then insinuates that because Bolshevism was bad there must be something wrong with Jewish ethnicity or ancestry. The label Jew is used in the following article in a similar way to how Antivaxxer is used, without any standard or evidence (the author is the judge of what makes one a “Jew”) and without establishing any relevance to this attribute, as if being called Jew (like Antivaxxer) is of itself somehow incriminating. I suspect you can see that this is defective logic and it unfairly paints an entire ethnicity, and the history of German Nazism provides evidence how much harm such beliefs can cause. For another example, consider that people of Anglo-Saxon ethnicity were the only ethnicity to ever use nuclear weapons in war, against civilians; does this demonstrate that the Anglo-Saxon ethnicity is inherently defective, or evil? I suggest that all ethnicities have the capacity for evil, and there are psychopaths and murderers in every race, tribe or culture. So if there is something wrong with a political ideology, the rational task is to defeat the merits of the ideology, to show precisely why it is wrong. To attack the ethnicity of some of the ideologues instead of the ideology is a category mistake and leaves the problem of ideology unresolved.
https://www.heretical.com/miscellx/bolshies.html
The following article (just a random example, over the years I have seen many of these, and worse) alleges that Bolshevism was driven mostly by people of Jewish ethnicity or ancestry, and then insinuates that because Bolshevism was bad there must be something wrong with Jewish ethnicity or ancestry. The label Jew is used in the following article in a similar way to how Antivaxxer is used, without any standard or evidence (the author is the judge of what makes one a “Jew”) and without establishing any relevance to this attribute, as if being called Jew (like Antivaxxer) is of itself somehow incriminating. I suspect you can see that this is defective logic and it unfairly paints an entire ethnicity, and the history of German Nazism provides evidence how much harm such beliefs can cause. For another example, consider that people of Anglo-Saxon ethnicity were the only ethnicity to ever use nuclear weapons in war, against civilians; does this demonstrate that the Anglo-Saxon ethnicity is inherently defective, or evil? I suggest that all ethnicities have the capacity for evil, and there are psychopaths and murderers in every race, tribe or culture. So if there is something wrong with a political ideology, the rational task is to defeat the merits of the ideology, to show precisely why it is wrong. To attack the ethnicity of some of the ideologues instead of the ideology is a category mistake and leaves the problem of ideology unresolved.
https://www.heretical.com/miscellx/bolshies.html
The belief in grand narratives of world domination by an “evil elite” not only violates the principle of sufficient reason (no grand narrative can be rationally verified) but it implicitly affirms moral antagonism between classes: the “evil elite” vs. the oppressed masses. This self-categorisation, which is not based on consistent reasoning but on existential anxiety, is a confession of methodological inferiority with respect to the rulers, and gives them a rational basis to justify their claim to power precisely because people are shown to be susceptible to psychological manipulation and cannot be trusted to think rationally. The belief in grand narratives that violate the principle of sufficient reason in effect demonstrates the spiritual superiority of the elites, and constitutes the energetic source of their power, an affirmation of fundamental differences in the moral status of social classes and the implicit consent to be ruled. Unless you follow reason, no matter how much this hurts your feelings, you unwittingly choose slavery.
Any purported delegation of authority that would allow the WHO to impose legally enforceable directives on the citizens of a sovereign state, within the borders of their own state, would be legally void. The delegated authority to issue decrees with the force of law would exceed the constitutional authority of the parliament itself. The parliament is constitutionally bound to make laws in a particular way, usually by a majority vote of its members, so for anyone to issue enforceable decrees outside of this process would always be ultra vires.
Why is a 7 NEWS journalist (media worker) asking questions that could “undermine the vaccine rollout” and “public confidence in the health authorities”. Who told her to ask this question and why? Remember, the great reset needs your energy for change, not apathy but outrage, not peace but anxiety, you need to believe that great change is necessary, that YOU are the vanguard of spiritual revolution, cultural revolution, and only then they can direct this energy towards their ends. Ordo Ab Chao.
No Pauline, nativist prioritarianism is the ideological bedrock of Nazism and racial supremacism, which is as Right Wing as it gets. But I do share your sentiment about non-natives being systematically degraded and left out. As a first generation migrant I was instantly made aware that I could never ‘belong’ here, that there is a secret value-hierarchy of who was here First, and who came here Last…