No amnesty for crimes against humanity.
Suddenly: calls for forgiveness of Corona crimes out of nowhere. Newsletters, anti-social media, and podcasts are discussing an article in The Atlantic magazine written by a certain Emily Oster. It’s titled “Let’s declare a pandemic amnesty. We need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about Covid.”
There are three things I will not do: first, read the article; second, do a background search on the author; third, write the blank check requested.
I will not read the piece because the headline already puts a lie to it, namely that there was a lack of reliable information on the so-called pandemic. But in fact, since the beginning of March 2020, good arguments have been presented to warn of a false alarm. For three years, Corona dissidents have tirelessly pointed out that every single aspect of this campaign bears signs of deliberate (!) deception and is causing harm. But the author uses the lie of innocent ignorance to justify her demand for amnesty for her anti-life, anti-human behavior.
Who the author is does not interest me, because by using the little word “we” she reveals herself to be a member of the fascistoid cult that planned and committed what is historically probably the most extensive crime against humanity, an unprecedented violation of natural law, causing in many respects irreparable damage – billionfold. She will have somehow earned her prominent position as the mouthpiece of the supposedly contrite, just like all the other “experts,” “authorities,” self-appointed guardians of public health, and so on who seek to evade responsibility through a blanket pardon.
No, I exclude myself from this “we” of hers emphatically. I have addressed the Corona crimes from the beginning of March 2020, have categorically refused any participation in the measures and have received in return some of what you supposed in-the-dark folks “did and said”: censorship in the name of science, torture in the name of health, hate speech in the name of truth, division in the name of solidarity, disenfranchisement in the name of the people.
No, I don’t “need to” do anything at all. Perhaps I will forgive one fellow or the other, but this is on condition that the person has understood the nature of their wrongdoing, expresses this in a credible way – for example, by stepping down from positions of power, by abandoning advantages gained or by making gestures of reparation – and, above all, displays a changed conduct. Anything else would be unreasonable.
No, there is no right to forgiveness; there is certainly no right to forgetting. Forgiveness is an attitude in which the aggrieved party considers their moral claims against the wrongdoer to be settled, after they believe justice has been served. Until then, there is no “Too bad, let’s forget it,” and never a conciliatory “In your place, I might have acted the same way.”
No, I wouldn’t have.
I didn’t.
I stood by the truth and I was ready to pay any price for it. Because I know your reasoning; it is false from beginning to end; there is absolutely no doubt about it after careful consideration. Despite your initial panic, this should also have been clear to you after only a few weeks. But for three years you thought you could carry the abuses continuously to new extremes. You have taken out your mental unsteadiness and your sadism on children, old people and on critics, who were exposed to your aggression without protection. You are lying to yourselves if you believe that you can simply wipe away the mess you have caused with a cheap appeal to people’s need for harmony – people who you helped wearing down through propaganda, silencing, coercion and threats to their livelihood.
Have you ever asked yourselves what the difference between people like us alleged covidiots and people like you? Are we just troublemakers who accidentally got their Cassandra calls right? Or is it possible that we were spot-on with our warnings because there was a way to know wrong from right – which we insisted on walking – while you were desperately trying to silence us so you wouldn’t have to hear it? What would happen if you too rejected the claims of those supposedly “in power,” the “authorities,” the “experts,” and the “quality media”? Do you still believe in Osama and the nineteen box cutters? In weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? In concentration camps in Kosovo? In Putin the Terrible?
Why are the main criminals still on the loose? Why are they still in office or in position? Why are you still listening to their tall tales? Why are you still playing by their rules? How credible do you think we consider your conversion, as long as BooTube, FakeBook and InstaCensor continue to define the admissible corridor of opinion while totalitarian laws are still in place?
No, I don’t believe your sudden awakening, I don’t believe in your insight. You did not slip up for three years, you did it on purpose. You would do it again, anytime, because you still believe in the legitimacy of authorities to whom you ultimately subordinate yourselves. You lash out at every scapegoat they point their finger at: the communist, the Muslim, the ‘social parasite’, the Trump voter, the ‘anti-vaxxer’. You learned nothing from history, neither the history told in books, nor the history you helped to shape. You just rage on unabated. For a change, it’s the Russians’ turn to take your beating. Do you see my problem? Probably not. Forgiveness is not an option when the issue in question is far from settled.
To this day, I have not come across anyone who has apologized for their behavior over the past few years. I have also seen no report in your media, which specifies the particular misdeeds, which the aggrieved “need to” forgive now – because you do not understand what went wrong! You would have to be able to look at your total failure as a feeling, thinking human being, yet I do not have the impression that you are capable of it or even just willing. And as long as it stays that way, I can’t trust you, I can’t believe you, and for the time being I can’t forgive you. If that means that society–what is left of it – will come apart, then so be it. I want nothing to do with you and your corrupt institutions until you awaken from your fantasies of total control. Stay away from me with your paranoia.
And if you think that your crime will be forgotten with time, then you are waiting in vain.
[Title image: Triumph of Virtue over Vice, by Paolo Veronese]
Video: Larken Rose – Never Forget! (March 2022)