How Fear of Everything will Kill Us

Quite a few years ago, when my 22 year-old Son was 6 or 7, he was mad about climbing trees. There was this massive oak in the children's park near our house and he used to climb that tree every day – usually several times a day. The council cut off the low-hanging branches, but that didn't deter him one bit.

One day, I was approached by a posse of angry parents demanding that I tell my child to stop climbing the tree because it was dangerous and I was not only abusing my child, but endangering theirs as well as their kids were also wanting to climb trees now. I looked up and saw a happy face peering our from the highest thinnest branches and my heart skipped a beat. Sure, he could fall out, but he most likely would just break an arm or a leg and he would learn to do is own risk assessment next time. I told the posse to let their children climb trees and they walked off in a huff. My Son survived, he enjoyed his childhood climbing and falling out of trees, falling off skateboards and bikes, skinning knees and elbows almost daily. In the process, he got better at assessing risk and stopped hurting himself quite as much.

So what's my point? Kids today, and parents, it seems, prioritise security over everything else. Freedom, living your life, all that comes at a price which we are no longer willing to pay.

First, we had terrorism. Now in my day (admittedly, I'm fairly old) the IRA who relentlessly bombed London and other parts of he UK. At that time, Maggie Thatcher was in all-out war with them and it was the biggest security threat we faced. Additionally, there was the Red Brigade, the PLO, the Baader-Meinhof group. Pretty much everyone was out to make a political point by blowing up, kidnapping or shooting someone. Nevertheless, laws weren't changed, freedoms weren't curtailed and everyone had the responsibility to keep an eye out for suspicious behaviour or bags left on public transport.

So wind on 20-30 years. Tony Blair in the UK was the first to impose significantly anti-liberal laws, locking up any suspects without trial. Guantanamo showed just how much lip-service the USA paid to freedom, whilst lecturing other countries on their lack of democracy. And all this was done in the name of security. They were even quite open about it: “The first duty of any government is to keep the population safe”. Is it? Really? I thought it was to promote well-being so that the population can live freely.

But terrorism has worked well and frightened people into accepting nearly everything. The mainstream media has been especially helpful in promoting fear by replaying beheadings and other atrocities on a nearly 24h loop for days after an incident. “Experts” are wheeled in to explain how we're in a culture war with the Middle-East, whilst others proclaim loudly that the “community” (in the UK, that means Pakistanis), should “stand up” to the militants. If you're an accountant in Croydon, how do you stand up to militants in Syria, I wonder?

In 2017 26,445 people were killed by terrorists globally, but 39,773 people died of gunshot wounds in the US during the same period.

www.ourworldingdata.com

So let's look at the figures to see how likely you are to get killed by a terrorist.

In 2017, 26,445 people were killed globally. That's 0.0003526% of the world's population. 56 million people died in 2017, making the number who died from terrorism a mere 0.05% (1 in 2000). (ref. https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism). Meanwhile, in the US, in 2017, 39,773 people were killed from gunshot wounds.

Incidentally, that's exactly the same percentage of the number of deaths from Covid. In the UK (one of the worst-hit countries in terms of deaths), 0.07% of the population died. The numbers are also suspect and probably inflated, but even then, the risks dying from Covid are infinitesimally small. Nevertheless, governments all over the world (bar Sweden) have turned our lives upside down, created draconian laws and severely curtailed freedoms.

It isn't the first time we have faced a pandemic. So far around 650,000 people have died of Covid worldwide, yet the Asian flu of 1957 killed between 2-4 million, including 80,000 Britons. The Hong Kong flu 1968-69 killed 4 million people worldwide, but life went on. There were no lockdowns, no extraordinary measures. These things were sad, but part of life.

Wind on a few decades, and we now need to save everyone irrespective of the collateral damage caused. This fear is stoked up by the media, who parade the bereaved on TV every day, tell us not to go out or we may kill Granny, and insist on us wearing face masks which half the medical profession think creates more problems than it solves. In a recent Kekst CNC poll, British respondents thought that of the UK population 7% died of Covid. That would be 4.5 million in the UK alone. Scots thought that 10% had died – 6.6 million!

But why are we so frightened of everything? Why can we no longer make accurate risk assessments? If someone told you, you had a 0.07% chance of dying if you go out today, would that stop you? Probably not.

The one difference between the 1980s and now is the presence of 24 hour news. This is eating away at our conscious and subconscious minds day-in, day-out. If you're told again and again that this disease is dangerous, you ill come to believe it, no matter what the actual figures tell you.

Outlets like CNN, Sky News, BBC all have an interest in scaring you so that you watch them more. There is a commercial imperative in frightening you… war, terrorism, disease, climate change, food and water shortages, capitalism, big pharma are areas all under fire and the stories are all doom and gloom. No wonder kids are growing up terrified and keep being terrified in adulthood.

Social Media is not much better, censoring anything that doesn't meet mainstream approval, making sure you only see one version of the facts.

We must reclaim our truth. We much be able to make up our own minds, without governments, media outlets or social media giants influencing us, but I'm sure you see the problem. Without them, where do we get our information?

A revolution is coming. Fear always creates upheaval as a majority lose control and rampage through the streets. It may be like 1969 – fear of capitalism or war, or like 1929 – fear of economic deprivation in Germany which led to a government targeted fear of Jews. Or it will be an escalation by smaller anarchic groups like Extinction Rebellion or Antifa.

Whichever way it manifests itself, our fear will destroy what we hold most dear – our freedom. Already you have willingly given it up. It is only a very small step to making these restrictions permanent as the “new normal” asserts itself. And who came up with that lovely phrase? Correct. The Media.

We have a small window where we can fight for our democracy and our way of life or surrender meekly to the tyranny of fear and government restrictions. We need to show everyone that we are not frightened. We will not wear face masks and will boycott every shop that requires one. We will not be afraid to travel. We will not be afraid of disease or terrorism or any other media-enhanced monsters under the bed.

Live your life. You only have one. Educate your kids and let them experience the world instead of cocooning them away from all danger. Democracy and freedom are worth fighting for. So fight!