Against the Corona-Panic, Part XVII: Tom Woods slams “Fact-Free COVID Dystopia” in fiery 45-minute speech

(1000 words)

I want to highlight an excellent talk by Tom Woods on Covid-ism and the Lockdown psychology. It is the kind of impassioned call to snap out of delusion, which, if more in public life had had the courage to make in March/April, we’d never have gotten into this.

Here is the Youtube upload of his talk (also audio link; mp3-download available):

This is worth listening to. It may also work on neutrals and softliners the pro-Panic side (but not the hardliners). I wouldn’t sell it to them in these terms, but the talk is Corona-Cult Detox, or probably better stated, deprogramming.

(See also Youtube backup version, audio only.)

Woods makes forceful and passionate points about costs that are overlooked/ignored, including about Covid-ism vs. the purpose of human life. Presented effectively and efficiently. This talk by Woods is probably more effective than anything I’ve written, especially for those who prefer the spoken word over the written. He streamlines a lot into this talk.

Tom Woods (at podium) slams the Corona-Panic and Lockdown-ism (Oct. 9, 2020)

Tom Woods denounces Lockdown-ism

Woods is a solidly anti-Panic, evangelically anti-Panic.

There is a lot I can say about the contents of the talk but much of it would be re-hashing ground I’ve already written on. One thing I can add is something political: Here we find one of the USA’s most prominent political-economic libertarians to be also in the “evangelically anti-Panic” wing of Corona discourse.

We can add that as another data-point in the running list of “Who’s who among the pro and anti Corona-Panic coalitions.”

(That libertarians would be against Lockdowns is not the shock of the century but is worth identifying and pointing to firm examples of anyway. Ron Paul, of whom Woods is ardent admirer, is also a good example. Ron Paul was against the lockdowns from the start.)

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Sacrificing the Young to help the Old

Woods hits on the theme a lot but at one point says it particularly eloquently:

The natural order is that parents make sacrifices for their children. Not the other way around.

If vulnerable people want to isolate themselves, and I can understand why they would, then they should do that. But, as I am going through middle age, it would never occur to me to make those demands of young people. Never. Because I would think that was selfish. Selfish of me.

When I was young, I got to experience all these things, all these irreplaceably beautiful moments of youth, but you can’t have them, to keep me safe. No, I’ll stay safe, by following precautions…But you go out and enjoy the one life you get. That’s what a good and decent person says. That’s what an unselfish person says!

Here is something I think he missed on this general theme, and it’s a big one:

One of the unseen costs of the entire Panic regime and the lockdowns is a fall in the birth rate. The Corona-Panic economic crash brings with it the social-financial instability and psychological stress which especially hits those of childbearing age, those just starting to form adult (or pre-adult) identities, those in search out their place in the world, those in transition, all of which includes very many if those in the marriage market (or, more directly stated, the “pair bonding with the implied goal of reproduction” market).

The extended life-arc disruption and economic hit to young adults spells a inevitable-looking net loss of live births. Couples will delay — “we can’t have a baby during the Coronavirus Crisis!”; pair bonds will fray and break; new pair bonds will not happen at the normal rate. The coming fall in births spells a net loss of human lives, who otherwise would have been born absent the Panic.

Going on all previous experience, these “lost births” will almost certainly outnumber genuine extra flu deaths in 2020-21. For every 100 flu deaths saved [in theory] among over-75s by the pro-Panic side’s mandated lockdowns, how many babies are we sacrificing, never to be born? 150? 200? 300? We’ll soon see.

(Prediction: There will be no panicked, saturation coverage in the media of the live-birth deficit all across the wide lockdown belt of countries, starting about mid-December 2020.)

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Experts Disempowered in name of (ironically) “Listen to the Science” mantra

There are many world-leading experts against the Panic but you’d hardly know it if you are a mainstream news consumer.

As one point, Woods says mentions this:

Martin Kulldorff at Harvard Medical School says the experts…the infectious disease epidemiologists, are afraid to speak out. Nice society you’ve given us, hysterics. Where the actual experts, qualified in this field, are afraid to speak out. A society of fear. Nice going.

Martin Kulldorff is, by the way, another expert from the European-Germanic sphere (PhD in Sweden; presumably he is Swedish by birth/ancestry/upbringing), as are a disproportionate share of publicly anti-Panic experts.

Another world-leading epidemiologist, the German Knut Wittkowski, made all the key points against the Panic and against Lockdowns, forcefully and unsubtly, early on, and his fate is instructive. Wittkowski slammed the idea of a flu-virus lockdown as insane, as needlessly damaging, and as counter-productive even towards the monomaniacal suppression-of-one-virus goal. Wittkowski’s anti-Lockown paper on March 30 and local media appearances (one-liners), also in late March, got him attention and led to two sensational anti-Lockdown interviews in April, which got millions of views.

By early May, Wittkowski was permanently banned from Youtube and his video appearances were systematically deleted. Naysayer experts are persona non grata; in Big Tech world; we’ve got a Panic regime to enforce!

His crime was to be the featured guest in an episode of an obscure documentary series about the Coronavirus Crisis. The series was produced by major documentary film outfit called Journeyman, a big Youtube cash-cow, but his episodes were both banned. That was April.

(Wittkowski, of German origin, was the protege of the coiner of the term “R0” [a term the pro-Panic side began using incessantly early on but that has now dropped away]. )

Other figures like Ioannidis of Stanford held fast the banner of sanity amid the worst of the storm. The anti-Panic regime in Sweden somehow also held out against the storm. Many more were on the Swedish path as of March 15, but very few were left by March 30. The original wave of Corona Coups d’Etat dates primarily to this two-week window, and Wittkowski came on the scene immediately afterward and was crushed.

If Woods’ talk gets lots of views — after two days the main Youtube upload is already past 50,000 views — will the Big Tech censors of late-2020 ban it, like they banned Wittkowski in late April/May for “violating CDC guidelines”? Time will tell.

There is all too much good material worth comment in the 45-minute talk, so that’s all I’ll say here. I may go back and listen again and add particularly good lines as comments.

If they do come to ban it for “contradicting CDC guidelines,” like they did with the un-personing of Dr. Wittkowski, the talk is available hosted Woods’ own his website, independently hosted:

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