Editor’s Note: Say What? is the segment of Liberty Nation Radio where we unveil some of the most wacky, astonishing, and damnable things uttered by politicians and the chattering class.
Tim Donner: It's the trial of the year, or perhaps it'll turn into the trial of the decade or even the century. Now that may be reaching a bit far, but none of us will ever forget the images that turned last summer into a harrowing nightmare. In a nation already adrift at sea in a pandemic came the nine-minute video played on a loop of George Floyd being killed/executed/murdered, whichever term you prefer to use, and the endless weeks of frightening violence in cities across the land -- rioting, looting, burning down homes, businesses, entire communities.
Months later, following a $27 million payment by the Minneapolis far-left city council to the Floyd family from the city's taxpayers, and the formation of an extraordinary dream team of lawyers to make sure Derek Chauvin, already likely the most hated man in America, cannot possibly be found not guilty, the trial is finally underway, and the nation is bracing for impact when the verdict comes down. Of course, the most race-conscious observers on the left have been watching with rapt attention because, as Van Jones said on CNN as the trial began, it's not just officer Chauvin on trial, it's the whole system.
Van Jones: Look, I mean, everybody I'm talking to are frustrated, re-triggered, re-traumatized seeing that video, seeing the complete contempt for life. The system is on trial. And I can tell you, people have tried to push away from this, move on from this. Today brought it all back home for tens of millions of people. And if this is considered legal conduct from a police officer, if you can do this in broad daylight and not go to jail, it will be perceived as open season, telling police officers from coast to coast, "You can literally get away with murder in broad daylight."
Tim: In order to make absolutely sure that cop who took down Floyd does not run free, the prosecution filed three separate charges related to his death, second-degree “unintentional felony” murder, third-degree so-called “depraved mind” murder, and second-degree manslaughter just in case.
But while the nation braces for the worst of what might come from the Floyd trial, we're hoping for the best from vaccination nation. More than a quarter of the U.S. population has now been vaccinated, leading most people to believe the end of this pandemic nightmare is in sight. But then comes this alarmist announcement from the new director of the Centers for Disease Control, the CDC, Rochelle Walensky.
Rochelle Walensky: I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. Right now, I'm scared. The trajectory of the pandemic in the United States looks similar to what many other countries in Europe, including Germany, Italy, and France, looked like just a few weeks ago. And since that time, those countries have experienced a consistent and worrying spike in cases. For the health of our country, we must work together now to prevent a fourth surge.
Tim: A fourth surge -- happening in some places, largely in the upper Midwest and far West. Right now, cases are falling in eight states, flat in 15, but rising in 27, more than half the nation. President Joe Biden added his own warning and pleading this week.
Joe Biden: I'm reiterating my call for every governor, mayor, and local leader to maintain and reinstate the mask mandate. Please, this is not politics. And businesses should require masks as well. The failure to take this virus seriously, precisely what got us to this mess in the first place, risks more cases, more desks -- deaths. Mask up. It's a patriotic duty.
Tim: Desks, deaths, whatever. And this leads us to a broader discussion of what is now being called a vaccine passport, the new magic bullet proposed by leftists like Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York for allowing people to safely go to crowded places like restaurants, theaters, and sporting events, or be barred from the premises without it. But another governor, Republican Ron DeSantis of Florida, says it's a terrible idea for freedom-loving people.
Ron DeSantis: It's completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply be able to participate in normal society. People have certain freedoms and individual liberties to make decisions for themselves. I also wonder it's like, okay, you're going to do this, and then what, give all this information to some big corporation? You want the fox to guard the henhouse? I mean, give me a break.
Tim: Author and social commentator Naomi Wolf went a step further, saying the vaccine passport is not only anathema to a free people but a major step down the path to full government surveillance.
Naomi Wolf: This is literally the end of human liberty in the West if this plan unfolds. Vaccine passport sounds like a fine thing, if you don't understand what those platforms can do. It's not about the vaccine. It's not about the virus. It's about your data. And once this rolls out, you don't have a choice about being part of the system. What people have to understand is that any other functionality can be loaded onto that platform with no problem at all. And what that means is it can be merged with your PayPal account, with your digital currency. It geo-locates you everywhere you go. Your credit history can be included. All of your medical history can be included. It's the end of civil society, and they're trying to roll it out around the world.
Tim: So there you have a worst-case scenario from the vaccine passport, the restriction of freedom. But another popular social commentator, Scott Adams, creator of the cartoon character Dilbert, said limiting freedom is the currency of civilization.
Scott Adams: That's true. It definitely discriminates against their freedom, but isn't that true of a driver's license? Isn't that true of getting a loan? People who don't have tax returns can't go on. Is that true of travel? You can't travel anywhere unless you have a passport. The entire civilization is built on restricting your freedom. You don't build a civilization to give people freedom. All of civilization is a restriction of freedom, but it's designed to be a wise restriction. It restricts the things that you'd want to restrict. This is just another one of them.
Tim: Note how he said that a vaccine passport is neither good nor bad, but simply that it is the type of thing we have long chosen to do in the Western world and other civilizations. The concern is that we'll be creating a two-tier society of those vaccinated and those not, haves and have-nots.
Finally, we conclude our ongoing series of comments from Gad Saad, psychologist and author of the book The Parasitic Mind, in which he lists 20 reasons why society is descending into what he calls the abyss of ultimate lunacy. We've covered one through 15, and today we conclude with reasons 16 to 20.
Gad Saad:
It is now sexist to publish scientific research that yields sex differences that are contrary to accepted politically correct orthodoxy.
It is now racist to point to FBI murder stats broken down by interracial markers of victim and perpetrator.
It is now racist to openly support national borders.
It is now racist to seek to curb immigration from countries that espouse values that are deeply hateful and anti-liberty.
It is now racist to request that job offers be based on the merits of an individual's dossier, rather than on the use of immutable traits. I could go on, but instead, read The Parasitic Mind.
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