I clearly remember Newt Gingrich and others, circa 2007, stating that the US government needed the Patriot Act and other authoritarian power grabs because “we need to stop someone from bringing a suitcase nuke into a city”. This was the essence of the neocon argument after 9/11. Aside from the fact that its not remotely possible to stop something so small and stealth, what Gingrich and the rest of the neocons of that era wanted was the same thing that today’s COVID-cons want: absolute, totalitarian control of every aspect of our lives in the name of safety. A demand for a total transformation of society into a prison. We might be “safe” in one sense, if we’re locked in a cell 24 hours a day, but we would not be free, and life would not be worth living.
In the COVID era, the post-9/11 security state chickens came home to roost. Our collective paranoia over terrorism, always bubbling below the surface, was reborn in 2020, triggered with precision through the well-crafted science of propaganda. And the arguments for total control were also reborn, reapplied to a virus. This is totalitarian risk mitigation, and ironically doesn’t mitigate risk at all. Its only function is to strip you of your freedom forever.
Imagine being Offit’s age and saying something so stupid, so ignorant, and saying it with such assurance. Totalitarian hypochondria is the direct descendent of War on Terror hysteria. Those Republicans created the template, all while assuring us that it would be never used against us. Well, watch below and ask yourself if that was a lie.
Dr. Offit: It should be illegal to catch a a cold pic.twitter.com/GcJ39sSJCX
— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) September 25, 2023
