My previous articles about the changes to the world that are indeed happening right now due to the after effects of the pandemic are proving prophetic. Many issues are being thrown up for our politicians and governments to consider but not only for them, for the whole of society.
The obvious examples of governments that have succeeded in beating the virus are those with more controls over their populations, whereas those with a more liberal and free society with expectations of personal privacy and abilities to travel widely are still suffering and will probably be so until the whole population has been vaccinated.
I’m including a section here of an email I got from my correspondent Simon Black at “The Sovereign Man” http://www.sovereignman.com/ which is a great summing up of the UK government’s current handling of our freedoms. Especially so when they include on their list of countries for visitors to isolate on arrival from this week, the likes of Botswana, which has zero cases, but allows from the USA which has thousands. It is this sort of illogical reasoning that just encourages people to ignore their laws.
From Simon Black:
“Earlier this week, the right honourable politicians of the United Kingdom rolled out strict new Covid travel rules.
Bear in mind that the UK already has some of the strictest Covid rules in the world right now. People must stay at home and only go out if they have a “reasonable excuse”.
Anyone who attends a gathering of more than 15 people faces steep fines of 800 pounds (about USD $1,100), and anyone who organizes said gathering faces a fine of 10,000 pounds.
All ‘non-essential’ businesses are closed. And, just like incarcerated felons, Brits are allowed to exercise outside once per day.
Now, those rules have been in place already for the past few weeks. But on Monday, the government established harsh rules for travellers.
Effective immediately, anyone who arrives to the UK from the so-called “red list” of countries, (including all of South America, Panama, most of southern Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Portugal, etc.) must purchase a quarantine package that costs around $2,400 per person.
The rules require that travelers from the red list quarantine in government-approved hotels (not at home), and the package includes accommodation, testing, etc.
As a further measure, the new rules also threaten fines and imprisonment of up to TEN YEARS if anyone is found lying about their travel history in order to avoid the quarantine package.
You read that correctly. Ten years in prison.
The British government, naturally, has defended the severity of these penalties, with the Health Secretary stating, “I make no apologies for the strength of these measures. . . People who flout these rules are putting us all at risk.”
This is typical, small-minded thinking of the scare class.
They believe that Covid is such a terrible scourge that no measure is too harsh, no liberty is off-limits. And anyone who isn’t sufficiently terrified is a threat to public health and national security.”
There Must Be Another Way
I sympathize with his beliefs, I still do not agree with throwing the majority of the population into poverty, shutting down the economy as the knock-on effects are quite likely to be worse than the virus for years to come.
Surely we could have managed the situation with businesses allowed to stay open, but giving those that were most at risk the choice to isolate, and pay them to do so, while anybody who carried on working or going out had to accept the risk and any eventuality.
Simon goes on to ask the questions and to compare the excessive sentencing brought in for those that breach the rules on entry.
“What about the dramatic increase in suicides, alcoholism, and domestic abuse?
What about the alarming rise in self-harm among children?
What about the untold numbers of people who don’t realize they have unchecked cancer growing inside of them because they’ve been scared away from having routine mammograms, pap smears, colonoscopies, etc. that would have caught a malignant tumor early?
Not to mention– threatening someone with ten years in prison for lying about their travel history seems completely absurd, especially when compared to other sentencing guidelines.
“It turns out, for example, that according to section 61(2)(a) of the Sexual Offences Act of 2003, administering drugs to someone in order to engage in unwanted sexual intercourse (e.g. Bill Cosby) can carry a lesser sentence than the new Covid rules.
I’ve taken the liberty to provide a partial list of other crimes in the UK that carry an equal or lesser sentence than lying about your travel history:
– Sexual Assault: 10 years [Section 3(4)(b) of the Sexual Offences Act of 2003]
– Racially-motivated assault: 2 years [Section 29, Crime and Disorder Act of 1998]
– Child Abduction: 7 years [Section 4, Child Abduction Act of 1984]
– Sexual Activity with a Child: 5 years [Section 16, Sexual Offences Act of 2003]
– Intent to injure her Majesty the Queen: 7 years [Section 3, Treason Act of 1842]
– Possession of child pornography: 3 years [Section 66, Coroners and Justice Act of 2009]
– Causing death by careless driving: 5 years [Section 20, Road Safety Act of 2006]
So, in summary, rapists, traitors, violent white supremacists, murderers, and paedophiles, can receive lighter sentences for their crimes than someone who lies about having been to Portugal.”
Whatever happened to the libertarian leanings of the Conservative Party? This is not good governance; this is the makings of satirical comedy and the characters are just as ridiculous as Spitting Image used to caricature. Those other countries must be laughing up their sleeves at how such an old imperial power has been brought to its knees by policies so frantically arrived at.
