Episode 7. Fear, Side Effect of Freedom?
Episode 7. Fear, Side Effect of Freedom?
When we exchange our civil liberties for the promise of safety we can be assured we are neither safe or at liberty. In the tradition of the United States safety has never been a guarantee but rather an opportunity. If we shut everything down, when will it ever be okay for it to come back? We are a nation paralyzed by fear and death, but it is the fear that may destroy us.
How much fear do we have as a human race? How far will we go as Americans? What will we do to ensure that we can go back to the once glorious country we have always known as the land of the free and the home of the brave?
MIKE DONOVAN: The America that we are living in right now is not a free America. We are going to be American… stand up and solve this problem together or we are going to cease being Americans together today.
Well, hello there, fellow human beings. Welcome to Not Free America radio podcast and I am Mike Donovan. I am your host sitting here bringing you news and information from the front lines of world war COVID and what seems to be in an impressively mounted war on the civil liberties of Americans.
Good evening. Let's start right out of the gate with some of the most horrific civil rights abuse red flags I've ever seen. Let's talk about Florida. Police in Florida are now aggregating information about your test status for coronavirus so that law enforcement can track people who have the disease or who have symptoms of the disease. Now that makes sense, right? Government needs to know who's sick, who's not, except what happens if you don't report. What happens if the -- why is the report necessary? What does the government plan to do with that list?
You know, these types of power grabs are so dangerous because when we're in the middle of a crisis and we're afraid, we don't ask these questions. We assume that our leaders are going to care for us, that they're going to protect our rights. But when has that ever truly been accurate? We must stand up for our own civil liberties in order to protect them. If you want to not willing to fight for your rights, you don't deserve them. We all need to understand that. Police lists of people who test positive or who may have symptoms for the Coronavirus is the first step to the second step, which was what we saw in Wuhan. When police, Chinese police entered homes and drug people out. We're giving the government so much power. And of course that power comes with consequences as the fears grow and the very difficult rule bureaucracy, rules of controlling the virus are implemented in hospitals across the country.
We've seen a significant increase in the number of attacks on doctors and nurses, not just in the United States, which has happened, but also across the world. We've seen an alarming increase in numbers of attacks on doctors and nurses in places like Mexico, Colombia, India, the Philippines, Australia, other countries… which by the way, instituted Draconian, locked down procedures. If you take a dog and you put it in a cage and you scare it, it will not be happy and it will attack. That's what animals do. We are animals.
We are being placed in little boxes. We're being terrified by our government. We know that there's a disease out there killing us and we're left to believe that the only hope we have is to surrender our liberties to the United States government. I've got news for you folks. The United States government does not have your best interest at heart right now. It does not. It can’t.
Because the only way the government of the United States of America can survive is if the, if the economy of the United States of America is restarted. And the simple fact is when we made a decision to shut the economy down, we made a decision to ultimately have to decide in short order -- and the time's coming -- when it's okay to reopen it in the face of death. Because you see once it's okay to close the economy down because of a virus, when is it okay to reopen it?
The vaccine isn't coming, folks. It's just not. We struggle with viruses. Look how long we struggled to cure HIV/AIDS and we still can't. And people can now live with it. And if the predictions are true that the current virus is now here and will be seasonal with its mortality rates and the way that it's spread, I mean, can we honestly, should our economy down every flu season? Is that what we're talking about? No, of course not. So the government needs to turn that economy back on. And now the government is dealing with a lot of people who are afraid. And so you're about to -- watch folks. You're about to watch this government go from terrorizing us with widespread panic to trying to convince us that everything's okay. I don't believe the government either before or now.
I think we need an independent Congress, which is the branch of government that represents us. Understand that… remember from civics class, right? You’ve got the executive -- one guy, the president and his staff. Very powerful. You got the Supreme court, nine judges. They know the law, they interpret it. And then the people are represented by the Congress. The Congress is large. More people have direct access to their representatives and Congress.
Congress needs to convene and come together to investigate and determine what is happening here. We have allowed the executives – look, it's not Donald Trump. I mean, you know Donald Trump, I'm not a fan of Donald Trump. I think Donald Trump -- I have a lot of thoughts about Donald Trump, but I mean he's the president in the middle of a worldwide crisis. I'm going to respect the fact that he has a very difficult job, but I'm not going attack him right now.
Okay. That being said, what's really, really important to understand is that any one person having to manage this is not -- it's not workable. We need the United States Congress and the people of the United States coming together. Remember, we are a government of by and for the people, mind you. Where are the people? Hiding in their homes, hiding in their bedrooms, hiding under the bed where the government tells you to be. What are we missing now? How do we come back from it? How do we turn it back on? When do we turn it back on? How many dead or okay? How many people dying a day is okay when we say, “Hey, you know what? We're going to turn it back on.” How far down do we have to get knowing that when we turn it back on the number of people dying per day is going to go up again? What's that number? Who's making that decision? Not us. Not the people… and we're the ones affected.
Giving blind loyalty to anyone, any ideation, any leader, any strategy… without question is un-American. We are different because the people of this country come together and we solve complex problems together. We learn from our experiences and we build upon our history. We are a young country… adolescent in nature, but look, what this country has accomplished in the world and on the world stage and from a world history perspective. So we owe it to ourselves as Americans to understand that the only thing that has ever brought America through -- the United States of America through times of crisis -- has been the unification of the people.
And the unification of the people in the United States of America is not accomplished by social distancing and hiding in your bedrooms. That isn't to say that people shouldn't stay safe. It isn't to say that social distancing shouldn't be happening. It should. But it should be a choice. It should be a choice. If a person wants to leave their home, even if it's a bad idea, unless they're subject to some judicial process and arrest, they can. If a person wants to go to church and celebrate Easter Sunday… if a hundred people, if 500 people want to get together and put themselves at risk… I might think it's stupid, but it's not illegal and it can't be illegal because if that's illegal than anything can be illegal. Anything that's codified in that Bill of Rights, I think we learned when we were kids that made us different… If it can just be given away in the time of an emergency… Let me ask you a question, a doomsday scenario, if you will. If this country is ever in real trouble, to the extent that the government would grab our civil liberties and enslave us, don't you think it's probably going to be precipitated by, Oh, I don't know, some kind of crisis? If we are willing to run away and be fearful of every crisis, then we might as well hang it up.
Because this democratic experiment was not made for us. If we can't be American, stand up, take charge, investigate this, find out what happened, and who knew, who should have known, who should have done something, but then do something about it… Figure out exactly what this curve looks like… Figure out how we're going to reopen this economy…
Ask the tough questions. How much debt is acceptable? Because that's the decision that's going to be made. Do you want it made in the situation room or the oval office? Or do you want it made with the American people talking about the effects because it's American lives? It should be the American people talking about the effects. We are going to be American -- stand up and solve this problem together or are we going to cease being Americans together today?
Folks, thank you so much for joining me. Join me tomorrow as we cover the increasing death toll and the COVID-19 pandemic. What's happening in the hotspots and what's coming up for cities like Philadelphia and Washington, DC. Folks join us tomorrow. Thank you so much. Take care. Stay safe. Stay healthy.