Don't implicitly concede principles by too narrow a focus on facts

Over at Rintrah, Radagast argues against relying too heavily on the "just the flu" argument against birdemic tyranny. When you argue against forced masking, distancing, lockdowns, pecks, etc. because they are ineffective, or because the virus isn't dangerous enough to warrant them, you are implicitly conceding that similarly tyrannical measure would be acceptable if they were more effective, or if a more deadly virus were to appear -- which, sooner or later, will happen.

By focusing too much on statistics and facts -- and I have often been guilty of this myself -- we imply that that is all our objection to tyranny is based on. We imply that when faced with the question, "Should we turn the world into a police state?" the proper response is, "Well, that depends. How many lives would it save?"

Statistics are important, Radagast concedes, but birdemic protestors

don’t go there because they are convinced the IFR is 0.17% instead of 0.8%. They don’t go there because they believe the herd immunity threshold lies at 25% instead of 90%. They don’t even go there because there is no significant correlation between lockdown stringency and excess mortality. And ultimately, they don’t even go there because they believe the WEF wants to implement a Great Reset.

No, those people go there, because what happened in March 2020, is incompatible with what we are. They reject it, the way your body would reject a pig’s heart implanted under your rib-cage. They reject it, because lockdowns are incompatible with Western values. Those values are interwoven with who we are as individuals, so many of you will have rejected it without even comprehending why.

"Western values," of course, is like saying C.E. instead of A.D. We all know what it really means.

A product of our Christian heritage is that we reject cruelty against individuals with a strict passion, even when it would benefit the societal good. This is what you and your ancestors have learned, what you had ingrained into your souls, for over a thousand years.

Yes, I am talking here about a notorious Jewish hippie, a young troublemaker who angered the pharisees. A man who went around violating Levitical law, by touching people with leprosy. What’s hard-coded into our brains, is empathy for individuals. It’s easy to forget that Christianity teaches that Jesus was both God and Man, a man who didn’t just bail you out of hell, but lived a life by example.

And whether you are today a Christian, a heathen, an atheist, a follower of the path of Dharma or something else entirely, the reality remains that you have grown up in a culture that is Christian in its essence, like the proverbial fish who fails to recognize water he has always lived in. And the great innovation that Christianity brought to the Roman empire, is the fundamental dignity of the individual.

Radagast is apparently not a Christian himself, and the points he chooses to emphasize are somewhat different from those I would focus on, but his central point remains: The Global Totalitarian Coup of 2020 is wrong, not ultimately for any statistical or medical reason, but because it is fundamentally anti-Christian -- or, in other words, Satanic. No debate over details can ever lose sight of that fundamental truth.

Suppose the birdemic were ten times as deadly as it really is. Suppose masks worked. Suppose "safe and effective" were not a punchline but a literally accurate description of the pecks. Ultimately, at the level that matters, nothing would be different. God would still be God. Satan would still be Satan. Totalitarianism would still be evil. You would still have to choose.

As it is, God has made it easy for us. But if he decides to make it hard, we will still have to make the same choices, and to understand clearly the foundation on which those choices are really based.