How Culpable Are You?

Jennifer Van Laar from Redstate has a terrific thread responding to Emily Oster’s piece at the Atlantic:
https://twitter.com/jenvanlaar/status/1587246222548426752?s=20&t=X-0a3lWsN4gb4U5dY9qclQ

Atlantic Article Archived: https://archive.ph/4wKaN

Dogs don’t have thumbs @MorlockP has another take:

Very Sun Tzu. OK. Challenge accepted!

I believe there are 4 levels of culpability and the level you fall under determines my willingness to forgive you and the punishment I believe you deserve (my opinion being the only thing about which I can definitively speak.

Level 4:

Level 4 is where the regular people who were convinced that all the COVID measures were necessary or not even enough reside. If you called authorities because your neighbor had too many visitors or because local kids were gathering at the park to play basketball on a warm sunny day, you’re in level 4. You are level 4 if you didn’t let your kids out to play because someone might walk by without a mask, or if you confronted unmasked people in a store even if you were working there, if you refused to let your sister visit your children until everyone was vaccinated, if you volunteered the words “I’m fully vaccinated” when meeting someone before you interacted with them.

Level 4 are where victims of psychological manipulation from government and media reside. You chastised and ostracized your loved ones who dared to challenge the authorities that you so eagerly obeyed. I understand, you were lied to. If you admit that you went too far, I will forgive you. We need to repair these bridges and move on together because that is what will get us through the next difficult stage of our existence, come what may.

LEVEL 3:

Level 3 has a much higher level of culpability in all of these. People in Level 3 actively participated in the administration of COVID measures or spreading of propaganda. The cheerleaders and enforcers.

You are in Culpability Level 3 if you hired the security guards to guard the doors of a building to check for vaccination status or re-arranged entrances and exits and purchased fancy signs to post your COVID policies with budgets that were funded by government grants or loans. If you hired and managed the inspectors to harass the local businesses about their seating capacities, plexiglass and the arrows that still lie, peeling on the floors of public places to remind us of the time we were all breaking the rules a little. If you inserted the words “baseless claims”, “inaccurately describes” or other derogatory descriptors in the copy of your articles when you quoted the daring resisters who spoke out against the mandates to carefully strip away any shred of credibility while you attempted to maintain the illusion of objectivity.

Level 3 is full of low-level administrators, managers, journalists who carried out orders from their superiors. Individually, their contributions seemed minor, but collectively, they contributed to a system of demoralization, dehumanization and oppression. Through these people, the elites exerted their power over an entire population. You will be required to make amends and it won’t be as simple as you explain in your article, Ms. Oster, for this is the level your culpability.

LEVEL 2

Level 2 is another step up in the culpability scale. Here reside the people who exerted local and regional power. You wrote or approved policy given to Level 3 people. You consulted with “experts” and took their recommendations without questioning the obvious flaws in logical reasoning. You, dare I say, seemed to relish in the increased level of power afforded by the COVID emergency. You determined who must get vaccinated to keep their jobs or be allowed to participate in society.

You could have balked at the idea that you should overstep the boundaries of your authority, take away bodily autonomy, destroy businesses. You could have stood up for those for whose safety you were responsible. You could have applied a true risk-reward analysis and eased up on the measures.

Instead, you looked at the risk of imposing the measures on your own job. You asked, if it can be done. Your lawyers said yes. You asked yourself what would happen if you didn’t do it and the answer was that you’d probably lose your job. Instead of speaking out and taking that risk you pushed forward for your own benefit.

Local mayors, leaders of regulatory bodies, heads of sports associations, mid-level politicians, you belong to Level 2.

LEVEL 1

Here we are. Numero Uno. You need to be held fully accountable for your actions that messed up so many lives, ruined the economy and the distribution system. Level 1 is where the top brass sit: heads of state, heads of health authorities and global organizations such as WHO and WEF, CEOs and top executives . You sat back and wondered how much power you could grab. Your wealth multiplied; your power solidified. You flew to meetings around the world while the regular citizens couldn’t travel to another state or province. You got special appointments at the hairdresser while everyone else tried to cut their own hair in the sink. You consulted with PR firms to craft the best narratives to spread, twisting and pivoting as required to keep it going, to keep people believing in you. You are the chief editors, owners lead writers and faces of media outlets.

Fauci, Tam, Trudeau, Witmer, Pelosi, Gates, Bezos, Zucker, Tedros Adhanom, Rob Ford, and many more.

The elite, running the show talked about the “opportunity offered by the pandemic for a great reset”. They want to control our lives, and this was an opening to increase that control.

I won’t say I could never forgive you. I just doubt any of you could ever demonstrate the sincerity necessary after the damage you have done. If there is any redemption, it lies in the fact that you have no awareness of the reality here on the ground. You were born in a separate world. Your father never showed you how to bump-start a car to get you school on a cold morning when the old battery died. You never looked at a credit card bill and wondered how it seems to sneak up higher each month and worried. You see yourselves as the parents and caregivers to the children who are so helpless but you don’t understand how the world works at our level. The tragedy is that you think you are above the human failings but your pride is putting us all in danger.

LEVEL 1A

I know I said there were 4 levels, but there is another. Any person who knowingly altered, hid or twisted facts that could have changed the course of the pandemic response holds an even bigger culpability than can be expressed. I have no evidence to show but I know these people are out there. Only they know who they are.