Make Them Suffer.
There is no forgiveness without repentance. There is no reconciliation without restitution.
From Eugyppius - Emily Oster proposes “a pandemic amnesty,” suggests that “we need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID”:
I don’t know much about the American pandemic pundits, but I gather that Brown University economist and “parenting guru” Emily Oster is far from the worst of them. Her Twitter timeline suggests she spent the early months of the pandemic terrified about the virus until school closures took their toll on her kids, at which point she repositioned herself as a kind of lockdown moderate, opposing the worst of the hystericist excesses while validating their central premises whenever possible to save face with friends and colleagues.
Emily Oster’s latest act of moderation is the suggestion that we forgive and forget all the disastrous policies inflicted on us by terrified wealthy urbanites, clueless technocrats and mad scientist vaccinators since 2020, because, hey, these were just honest mistakes, anybody could’ve messed up like that, it’s all good.
April 2020, with nothing else to do, my family took an enormous number of hikes. We all wore cloth masks that I had made myself. We had a family hand signal, which the person in the front would use if someone was approaching on the trail and we needed to put on our masks. Once, when another child got too close to my then-4-year-old son on a bridge, he yelled at her “SOCIAL DISTANCING!”
These precautions were totally misguided. In April 2020, no one got the coronavirus from passing someone else hiking. Outdoor transmission was vanishingly rare. Our cloth masks made out of old bandanas wouldn’t have done anything, anyway. But the thing is: We didn’t know.
The thing is, Emily Oster, that we did know. We’ve studied respiratory virus transmission for years. All the virologists and epidemiologists who aren’t total morons knew your 2020 mask routine was crazy and they just didn’t care. They wanted you to do it anyway, because they thought that if they got you to act paranoid and antisocial enough, your insane behaviour might have some limited effect on case curves. Joke’s on you, and it’s sad you still haven’t realised.
[T]here is an emerging (if not universal) consensus that schools in the U.S. were closed for too long: The health risks of in-school spread were relatively low, whereas the costs to students’ well-being and educational progress were high. The latest figures on learning loss are alarming. But in spring and summer 2020, we had only glimmers of information. Reasonable people—people who cared about children and teachers—advocated on both sides of the reopening debate. …
No, reasonable people could see already in March 2020 that SARS-2 posed no measurable threat to children. There was never any honest debate to be had about this.
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. …
We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty. … [W]e need to learn from our mistakes and then let them go. We need to forgive the attacks, too. Because I thought schools should reopen and argued that kids as a group were not at high risk, I was called a “teacher killer” and a “génocidaire.” It wasn’t pleasant, but feelings were high. And I certainly don’t need to dissect and rehash that time for the rest of my days.
Moving on is crucial now, because the pandemic created many problems that we still need to solve.
I’m sorry somebody called you genocidal, Emily Oster. That must’ve been tough for you. You know what’s also tough? Getting your head kicked in by riot police because you had the temerity to protest against indefinite population-wide house arrest.
Or being fired from your university job and banned in perpetuity from the premises because you uploaded a video to social media complaining about the onerous and expensive testing requirements imposed upon unvaccinated staff. Or being confined to your house and threatened with fines because of personal medical decisions that had no chance of impacting the broader course of the pandemic in the first place. But somebody called this woman genocidal in French and she’s ready to move on, so it’s all good.
Emily Oster may have said a few reasonable things in the depths of her pandemic moderation, but she can take her proposal for pandemic amnesty and shove it all the way up her ass. I’m never going to forget what these villains did to me and my friends. It is just hard to put into words how infuriating it is, to read this breezy triviliasation of the absolute hell we’ve been through, penned by some comfortable and clueless Ivy League mommyconomist who is ready to mouth support for basically any pandemic policy that doesn’t directly affect her or her family and then plead that the horrible behaviour and policies supported by her entire social milieu are just down to ignorance about the virus. We knew everything we needed to know about SARS-2 already in February 2020. The pandemicists and their supporters crossed many bright red lines in their eradicationist zeal and ruined untold millions of lives. That doesn’t all just go away now.
From Michael P. Senger at The New Normal - Let’s not declare a pandemic amnesty. Let’s declare a real pandemic inquiry:
I’ll admit, I nearly spit out my coffee when I saw Brown Professor Emily Oster’s new headline in The Atlantic this morning. It’s the headline we’ve been waiting to see—and, in the revisionist, gaslighting style that’s become the journalistic norm on the response to Covid—it’s about the closest thing to an outright admission of guilt that we’ve seen since Covid began.
The article is about as pathetically transparent as it is self-serving. Gee, I wonder what Oster did and said during Covid for which she might want amnesty…
Oh…
There’s a lot wrong here. First, no, you don’t get to advocate policies that do extraordinary harm to others, against their wishes, then say “We didn’t know any better at the time!” Ignorance doesn’t work as an excuse when the policies involved abrogating your fellow citizens’ rights under an indefinite state of emergency, while censoring and canceling those who weren’t as ignorant. The inevitable result would be a society in which ignorance and obedience to the opinion of the mob would be the only safe position.
Second, “amnesty,” being an act of forgiveness for past offenses, first requires an apology or act of repentance on the part of those who committed the offense. Not only has no such act of repentance been forthcoming, but in most cases, establishment voices like Oster’s have yet to stop advocating these same policies, much less admit they were wrong. With no accompanying act of contrition, these calls for “amnesty” in light of rapidly-shifting public opinion have a real ring of fascist leaders calling for “amnesty” after losing the War.
Third, there’s some question as to whether Oster herself really did know better at the time. Like many other mainstream Covid voices, Oster had long been closely attuned to Covid data showing that these mandates did not work, yet she often seemed reluctant to share that data insofar as it contradicted the mainstream orthodoxy that mandates were necessary. In that sense, the policy prescriptions of Oster and those like her may have had less to do with ignorance than with cowardice, tribalism, and “following orders,” which can’t be considered acting “in good faith.”
And that leads to the ultimate problem, from a legal perspective, with Oster’s call for “amnesty” for the advocacy of totalitarian policies during Covid: The implicit assumption that all those who advocated lockdowns, mandates, censorship, and an indefinite state of emergency, all the way up the chain of command, did so in good faith. If those who advocated these policies are simply presumed to have done so out of well-meaning ignorance, then any inquiry into the many outstanding questions as to the origin of these policies—and the underlying motivations of highest-level officials who promulgated them—is foreclosed.
The implicit assumption is that, owing to their socioeconomic status, the superficial cutesiness of public health, and the panic surrounding the pandemic, all those who advocated these mandates must have done so in good faith. But this argument presupposes that the “pandemic” was a natural phenomenon, like a tsunami, which would have inevitably led to panic. On the contrary, studies have long shown that it was the mandates themselves that caused the public to panic, making them believe their chances of dying of Covid—which never had an overall infection fatality rate much higher than 0.2%—were hundreds of times greater than they really were. Further, there’s a growing mountain of evidence that the handful of key officials who led the initial push for unprecedented lockdowns and mandates did not, in fact, do so in good faith.
Our institutions are in serious need of restoration after the incalculable damage that’s been done to them during the response to Covid. But we forget, at our peril, that those institutions weren’t built with flowery words and good intentions. They were built with blood, sweat, and tears, by those who fought for them with their lives. Let’s not declare a pandemic amnesty. Let’s declare a real pandemic inquiry.
From Vox Day - Never to Forgive, Never to Forget:
There will be no “pandemic amnesty”. Those of us who weren’t stupid enough to fall for the obvious lies of the global depopulationists, the corrupt scientists, and the media are neither going to forgive nor forget the lies that were told, the incessant attacks on us, or the price that is still being paid by our friends and family members who refused to listen to us.
When the vaccines came out, we lacked definitive data on the relative efficacies of the Johnson & Johnson shot versus the mRNA options from Pfizer and Moderna. The mRNA vaccines have won out. But at the time, many people in public health were either neutral or expressed a J&J preference. This misstep wasn’t nefarious. It was the result of uncertainty….
Given the amount of uncertainty, almost every position was taken on every topic. And on every topic, someone was eventually proved right, and someone else was proved wrong. In some instances, the right people were right for the wrong reasons. In other instances, they had a prescient understanding of the available information.
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. All of this gloating and defensiveness continues to gobble up a lot of social energy and to drive the culture wars, especially on the internet. 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.
We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty. We can leave out the willful purveyors of actual misinformation while forgiving the hard calls that people had no choice but to make with imperfect knowledge. Los Angeles County closed its beaches in summer 2020. Ex post facto, this makes no more sense than my family’s masked hiking trips. But we need to learn from our mistakes and then let them go. We need to forgive the attacks, too. Because I thought schools should reopen and argued that kids as a group were not at high risk, I was called a “teacher killer” and a “génocidaire.” It wasn’t pleasant, but feelings were high. And I certainly don’t need to dissect and rehash that time for the rest of my days.
Moving on is crucial now, because the pandemic created many problems that we still need to solve.
There is no forgiveness without repentance. Not only is there no repentance from the pro-vaccine side, many of their lies are still being told! And the gaslighting and backpedaling by the politicians, the corporations, and the pharmaceutical companies – we never said the vaccines would prevent the transmission of COVID or forced anyone to get vaccinated – is absolutely unrepentant and unconscionable.
As Spacebunny aptly quoted Cerno, “there is no reconciliation without restitution.”
The only way to learn from mistakes is to admit them, and virtually no one who got vaccinated and/or pushed the vaccination on others is even willing to admit they were mistaken, much less repent of their foolish and hateful words. All of them will pay a price for their decisions, both physically and in terms of the way in which their decision-making capabilities will be regarded in the future. It is a price that is not only inescapable, but entirely merited.
The ongoing problems will not be solved by the people who created and exacerbated them, especially not when those people are desperate to deny their responsibility for the problems.
Never ascribe to uncertainty or error that which can be explained by malicious and satanic evil.
From Brendon Marotta at Hegemon Media - We Need Justice For The Pandemic, Not "Forgiveness":
The Atlantic writes that “we need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID.” The magazine that claims There Is No Middle Ground on Reparations, a policy to redistribute wealth for events over a hundred and fifty years ago, believes we need to move on and make no reparations for events two years ago.
The resounding response to this suggestion has been: No. Those harmed by the wrongdoing that occurred through the pandemic need justice, not “forgiveness.” Calls for “forgiveness” from the perpetrators when no apology has been given are an attempt to escape accountability and maintain power they can further misuse.
I believe perpetrators call for forgiveness because they fear punitive justice. If the perpetrators were held accountable in our current justice system, the scale of the wrongdoing would result in punishments the perpetrators could not bear. These punishments would also not give those who lost their jobs, businesses, friends, family, health, or freedom anything back. What if there was another way that would be better for both victims and perpetrators?
In my book Children’s Justice, I discuss restorative justice, the concept on which ideas like reparations are based. Restorative justice is a model of justice that focuses on repairing the harm caused by wrongdoing, rather than merely punishing perpetrators. According to The Little Book of Restorative Justice, in order for restorative justice to take place three things have to happen:
The wrong or injustice must be acknowledged;
Equity needs to be created or restored;
Future intentions need to be addressed.1
What would restorative justice would look like for the wrongdoing that occurred throughout the pandemic?
1. The wrong or injustice must be acknowledged.
The wrongdoing of the pandemic has not been acknowledged. Those responsible have made no apologies. Calls for “forgiveness” appear dishonest when those responsible haven’t apologized, which is usually a prerequisite to asking for forgiveness.
Acknowledging wrongdoing on a personal level is very simple: say you’re sorry. If you yelled at someone or shamed them for their personal health decisions, find them and apologize. If your business put a sign up refusing service to those who didn’t wear a mask or were not vaccinated, put up a new sign apologizing to them and inviting them back. Make amends. People who go through Alcoholics Anonymous do this all the time as the eighth step of their recovery. If they can figure it out, surely elected officials and public health experts can too.
Our culture already acknowledges wrongdoing on a larger scale. There are national holidays, museums, and official statements that acknowledge the harm caused by slavery, the Holocaust, and the genocide of Native Americans. Why not similar cultural initiatives to acknowledge the loss of freedom that occurred to all Americans during the pandemic? While this event is different than the aforementioned, the way we have previously handled culturally acknowledging those events might offer lessons for this one.
2. Equity needs to be created or restored.
Equity is equality of outcomes. In practice, restoring equity means creating the outcomes that would have occurred had no wrongdoing occurred. The result of the pandemic was highly unequal outcomes that benefited the perpetrators at the expense of the victims. Billionaires, the medical industry, and other perpetrators saw their wealth grow during the pandemic, while regular people lost their money.
Creating equity would mean taking the ill-gotten gains of perpetrators and redistributing them to the people who lost their jobs and businesses during the pandemic. In short, it would mean reparations. Those in power responsible for pandemic wrongdoing already vocally support reparations on other issues, so this is just the application of their ideas to their own actions.
Equity is not just about money. Losses during the pandemic were not just financial. People lose their friends, family, and freedoms. Much of the harm done was cultural, emotional, and social. No amount of money can replace the ability to grieve in person at your loved one’s funeral. Yet restorative justice requires creating equity around these events to the extent possible.
Documenting the full harm that occurred during the pandemic would require more than I can fit into this article, but it must be done - and it is the responsibility of the perpetrators to acknowledge and create equity around all of it.
3. Future intentions need to be addressed.
Restorative justice is only complete when the wrongdoing cannot happen again. Since restorative justice is about helping those who were harmed, ensuring there are no “repeat offenders” is critical. To address future intentions, we must understand the reason wrongdoing occurred during the pandemic and ensure it never happens again.
Until these reasons are understood and changed, the perpetrators must be removed from power. Leaving perpetrators in a position to continue harming others by “forgiving” them isn’t moral high ground. It’s complicity in their wrongdoing. This extends to all levels of wrongdoing. Those who lied need to lose their status as “authoritative” sources. While some of this status is cultural, it is also institutional through what sources are used for legal proceedings, fact-checking, social media moderation, and academic sources.
The Atlantic claims that “we didn’t know” (emphasis theirs) that COVID policy was wrong. Yet many did from the beginning. Their reputations were damaged and social media accounts banned for their historically correct actions. To create equity and address future intentions, those most vocally against the pandemic need to be placed in the positions of authority currently held by those who were cruel and wrong on this issue. Those who did the right thing even when it personally cost them are more likely to do good in the future than those who caused the original harm.
The harm the medical industry perpetrated was not due to a few individuals or “elites” as conspiracy theorists suggest, but systemic issues with the medical industry. These issues would require a book to explore. For that full critique, read Children’s Justice, but the short version is that the medical industry must move from their current model to a holistic one. The same medical mindset that prescribes opiates without considering the side effects also prescribes lockdowns without considering the impact on society. A holistic mindset would have handled the pandemic differently and address future intentions.
In the wake of other significant culture-wide harm, there have been social reforms. Civil rights and human rights law were a response to historical wrongdoing. To ensure future harm does not occur again, we need to make bodily autonomy a protected right. Had bodily autonomy been a protected right during the pandemic, much of the harm that occurred would have been prevented. There are other forms of harm the medical industry is still engaged in today that would end if this right were recognized as a constitutional amendment.
That’s what restorative justice would look like for the pandemic.
Restorative Justice Is The Moderate Approach
I suspect some will object to restorative justice as harsh or unreasonable. Yet this is a moderate approach. A harsh approach would be the punitive legal system we already have. In the punitive legal system, we would access damages and award punishment based on those damages. Punishments would include fines, incarceration, and even the death penalty. Simply removing perpetrators from power and asking them to participate in healing the harm they’ve caused is an incredibly merciful offer. It’s also what they should do if they believe the ideals they espouse.
From Pedro Gonzalez at Contra - Libs Want ‘Pandemic Amnesty.’ Give Them Punishment:
The bottom line is there can be no “amnesty” for these people; we should neither forgive nor forget. The funny thing about amnesty, moreover, is that, in strict terms, it is bestowed by those with power—in this case, Oster and her allies—to those without or out of power. Oster, then, is asking something from people who cannot give it. I suspect this is partly due to her being delusional and not understanding she and her friends are the villains in this story. They are not coprotagonists struggling alongside us against a virus; they are and remain the true antagonists. They are more of a disease than Covid.
As such, it is an insult for her to suggest the victims owe the villains an apology on the condition that the latter also say they’re sorry. That is not forgiveness—it is a license to abuse once more. Instead, what is owed is punishment and justice.
And justice, proportionate to the crimes committed, would look like military tribunals. It would mean consigning corporate executives and government bureaucrats to death row or life imprisonment. It would bear witness to the professional and personal ruination of late-night hosts, Pulitzer-winning columnists, and politicians, who would never again be able to show their faces in the light of day. Publications, television networks, and think tanks would be shuttered in shame; writers, anchors, and researchers would never be able to work again. Assets and endowments would be seized and redistributed as reparations. The guilty would be written into the books as the villains of the century. And when, like the Romans at the mercy of the Gauls, they would ask for amnesty, we would reply like Brennus: “Woe to the conquered.”
Our enemies would never extend the same “forgiveness” to us. Why should we do the same to them? So they can sweep their crimes under the rug and “move on” to commit the same crimes over and over again?
Thankfully, the “professor” is getting ratioed on Twitter, as people all over the world rise up with boldness to say “No. Not this time. Never again.”
They are angry. They want payback for everything in the 2+ years that was stolen from them. And rightly so.
“I want you to argue with them and get in their face.” -Barack Hussein Obama, 44th President of the United States
As for us Nomads, we are like the abused spouse that finally worked up the courage to pack our bags and leave. The chinavirus was just the catalyst after many long years of mistreatment. We got a glimpse into exactly what Western governments think of us, how they look at us, and what they would do to us if they ever got the chance.
We also saw that the system is fundamentally broken, and the solution to our problems is not “voting even harder next time.” The PTB has already seen to that, with strategic ballot box stuffing.
Finally, enough of us woke up and said “No more. We’re done.” Some of us have fully made our exit. Others are still slowly making their way to the exits.
How fast you implement your escape plan is up to you. Don’t wait until it’s too late, though. Western governments have imprisoned us once before. They’ll do it again. Now is the time to Escape From The West.