The Other Side Of The Tipping Point

In any endeavour there comes a time when we hope that the hard slog and grind of effort pays off and we begin to see the fruits of our labour. A time when we have the momentum and the wind to our back. I believe that collectively we're at that point, at least on one issue.

I follow what's happening in America closely because what happens there eventually makes its way here. We've seen that with movements such as cancel culture where in America they're silencing differing opinions and toppling statues of historical figures long since dead. The perceived 'crimes' of these people range from holding views now deemed unacceptable hundreds of years later to being the first explorer of European descent to 'discover' a new country. This daft movement has since found its way to the UK with attempts to topple statues of Winston Churchill, the man who led Europe against Hitler.

What happens in America spreads to us, albeit often in a diluted form. So it's with interest I read the headline that the New York Supreme Court has ordered all employees fired by the state for refusing the jab to be reinstated with backpay.

I want to highlight the words the Judge used to describe the mandates. "Arbitrary and capricious." This was the Judge's assessment given the jabs never stopped transmission. The wheels of justice turn frustratingly slow. Much slower than a frenzied and vindictive media and punitive pronouncements of irresponsible politicians, who saw COVID as an opportunity to grandstand and release their inner authoritarian.

For those of us who fought for what we had assumed were inalienable rights, this day is bitter sweet. We knew, or hoped, this day would come and we could feel vindicated. This is the start and I sincerely hope we'll see this ripple through, including to other countries like mine. We're on the other side of the tipping point.

True, our legal systems might be different but the science is the same and so are human bodies, so the rationale of mandates being "arbitrary and capricious" holds in Australia and New Zealand also. Some of us knew this from the start and refused to be cowered!

There is nothing more frightening than a hysterical mob. In future this period will be remembered for the unhinged behaviour of populations whipped up on fear and unleashed. I'm not the first to liken this period to the hysteria of the middle ages and the Witch Hunts of the 1690s. We quizzically look back on that period in history and wonder at the irrationality and mania. Let us not forget there were souls who died.

During my undergraduate psychology degree I studied social and mob behaviour, including cults.  It's one thing to stand on the side as a disinterested observer of history and quite another to find yourself in the thick of such a social event.

There are large internment buildings in Australia, visible from space. Now sitting empty, it was proposed they also be used for the disobedient unjabbed. Not to diminish the plight of the Jewish circa 1930s, but that's one step short of concentration camps in my view. We came perilously close to gross injustice in the name of collective good, based on hysterical propaganda and falsehoods.

What we can't lose sight of is how this was allowed to happen. In all countries weaknesses in legislation, which should have protected Human Rights, were exposed. There were violations of these Human Rights on what we have since confirmed was never a sound approach scientifically and from the get-go. Beyond immediate accountability, those weaknesses must be fixed.  

The word atrocity will be used in conjunction with the last two years and in relation to mandated medication and passes on a false premise. Those jabs never did stop transmission! Those harmed aren't quite ready to forgive and forget and just move on. Salving the conscience of the perpetrators and those complicit in persecution isn't high on the priority list.

Lessons need to be learned so this never happens again. What's needed is transparency and honesty first, followed by practical changes to laws to ensure protection of Human Rights, everywhere! This is where we must start in order to heal the physical and psychological scars and societal trauma.