"Emergency Powers"

 From The Federalist:

The American Conservative’s Shaun Rieley joins Senior Editor Christopher Bedford and Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky on The Federalist Radio Hour. The three discuss how the Glasgow Climate Conference revealed a transformation that’s taken place in our society through the last two years of tyrannical COVID-19 lockdowns and mandates. Technocrats have figured out that they can transform “emergency” COVID powers into permanent emergency powers over climate change. Bedford argues that climate change enthusiasts like Greta Thunberg are hyper-focused on the issue in a way that prevents them from having any nuance about how their tyrannical policies hurt humankind.

“You have to have a holistic view of these things and we surrendered that during COVID, and that is what climate scientists want us to do that now,” he said. “The more bureaucracy you create, the more tools the left has to usurp freedoms,” Jashinsky said. (Read more.)

Also from The Federalist:

Today, “democracy” means something very different — it means rule by a narrow technocratic elite. Listening to every changing claim Tony Fauci utters? That’s democracy; put him on the cover of Rolling Stone. A little rebellion? Some questions about vaccines or voter fraud or Black Lives Matter that aren’t approved by CNN and Co.? That ain’t democracy; that’s “misinformation” — and it stays outside the Twitter.

In all societies, there are people who feel entitled to build their own moral universes and compel us to obey their manmade constructs. It’s for the collective good, they say, although suspiciously often “the collective good” seems to align with giving them the most money and power, status and freedom — maybe even a ticket to Glasgow.

COVID was the best thing to ever happen to these people. The panic over an unknown virus caused too many of us to rush to give up freedoms we once knew to be essential: The right to travel, for example, or the right to eat in a restaurant; the right to protest in public; and in many cases, the right to run a business and take of our families; literally the right to say goodbye to our elders and to bury our dead.

Now COVID-19 is fading away, but with the precedent set, the leadership class would like to keep all these new powers they’ve gained. Turns out, they’re good for a lot more than just pretending to contain a virus.

Wouldn’t it be grand, our technocrats think, if they could turn the COVID-19 emergency into a permanent emergency over climate? The possibilities are limitless.

Traveling? If we can lock you in your home to stop a virus, why can’t we trap you there so you don’t get in your gas-guzzling car or fly on a carbon-spewing airplane? Such wastefulness must be reserved for a select few, like the important leaders flying to international climate conferences.

Remember the coverage of the early lockdowns, when you could drive from end to end of New York City or Boston without an ounce of traffic? “How good this is for the environment!” they crooned. Seriously, articles talked about the upsides for Mother Earth. Even Friedman’s perpetual wish that we be more like China was finally granted; emergency powers über alles. (Read more.) 

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