Break the Chains: Summary

Is it time to plan our escape from pandemic prison?

Pandemic policies are distorting our politics and eroding our freedoms.

We need a new way to protest that respects other people and holds politicians to account.

The first step is to identify ourselves, show common cause, and support positive change.

We have been in a profound social crisis across the world since mid-March and the declaration of mandatory lockdowns for all.

A public health emergency has morphed into an incredibly deep economic recession, the suspension of traditional freedoms of movement and association, controls over what we wear and what we do, and a fracturing of our social relations.

Anyone can now see that we are going to have a phalanx of restrictions on our rights as free citizens for years to come.

Governments exhort us to back these anti-pandemic policies, most of which have been issued as emergency executive decrees without intensive legislative oversight or prior public debate, with uniform acceptance and good cheer.

On top of this deliberately skewed spin, a further sign of our dysfunctional politics is that public discussion and consent have been replaced with command and control measures, backed up by a social shaming street tyranny delivered by some of the frightened majority.

This politics is democratic in form but not substance, since there is little room for dissent or conscientious objection, no room for minority opinions, and no place for protest or political action (aside for those with officially approved messages like Black Lives Matter).

George Orwell in his writings thought that political repression would come with deliberate malice; we can see now that it enters on the best of intentions, stretches its legs, and settles in for a good long stay.

You may think that these words are exaggerated and that our situation is not anywhere near as dire as outlined above.

The reality test is whether you are brave enough to stand up to society’s sanctions, as they arrive in person in any public place in the form of confrontation, hard glares, harsh words, and possibly physical force.

Bottom line, if we cannot communicate with each other, if belief and emotion trump discussion and logic, if people simply will not listen, how can we hope to turn back the building wave of social restrictions that are turning us from free citizens into fearful and excessively compliant servants to the state?

My answer is quite modest but could be effective if it caught on.

I think we need a new way to protest, one close to civil disobedience but without conflict or violence, one that informs others without scaring them or turning them off, one that promotes dialogue and does not shut down open debate.

We could start by simply identifying ourselves and our cause to each other and to the rest of society.

And by “we”, I mean those people who share a common conviction that we need to:

· Re-establish the freedoms that have been restricted,

· Stop forcing people to follow government edicts and rely instead on voluntary cooperation,

· Open up the decision-making process to consider the full implications of policy,

· Broaden the public debate and encourage respect for every viewpoint, and

· Fully restore our democracy by empowering the legislature and citizens to hold our political leaders to account.

By openly identifying ourselves in a common cause, we could create an opportunity to show strength in numbers and also encourage others to ask why we are challenging the present state of things.

Change can only happen when we convince our political leadership that their policies are not working and, more importantly to them, are unpopular.

With enough people participating, we could reveal the true support for freeing ourselves, now hidden by our separateness, and the democratic process would begin to work in the direction of positive change and reversion to our traditional and hard-won freedoms.

Ultimately, we can break our chains, which right now are made of pretty formidable stuff: government decrees, police enforcement, community disapproval, and counterproductive ideas in many people’s minds.

With that great challenge, what do you say? Is it time to plan our escape?

The full article can be found here.