{"id":15671,"date":"2021-03-10T11:30:31","date_gmt":"2021-03-10T16:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=15671"},"modified":"2024-09-11T16:01:12","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T20:01:12","slug":"lockdowns-wrecked-democracy-around-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/10\/lockdowns-wrecked-democracy-around-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Lockdowns Wrecked Democracy Around the World"},"content":{"rendered":"
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American Institute for Economic Research, March 10, 2021<\/h3>\n

Lockdowns Wrecked Democracy around the World<\/a><\/h1>\n<\/header>\n
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While the number of fatalities attributed to Covid-19 is carefully tracked by governments, few people have recognized how pandemic-spurred crackdowns have devastated democracy around the world. Emergency proclamations have entitled presidents and other government officials to seize vast new powers previously forbidden to them. Government bureaucrats became a new priesthood that could sanctify unlimited sacrifices merely by invoking dubious statistical extrapolations of future perils.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In October, Freedom House issued a report, Democracy under Lockdown \u2013 The Impact of COVID-19 on Global Freedom,<\/a> which warned that since the pandemic started, \u201cthe condition of democracy and human rights has worsened in 80 countries.\u201d Sarah Repucci, co-author of the report, warned that \u201cgovernments\u2019 responses to the pandemic are eroding the pillars of democracy around the world.\u201d Abuses of power have been propelled by a presumption that government officials are entitled to all the power they claim to need to keep people safe.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the pandemic arrived in America, governors in many states responded by dropping the equivalent of a Reverse Neutron Bomb<\/a> \u2013 something which destroys the economy while supposedly leaving human beings unharmed.<\/strong> New York Governor Andrew Cuomo set the standard when he effectively declared that he was entitled to inflict any burden on his state\u2019s residents to \u201csave just one life<\/a>.\u201d Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer prohibited anyone from leaving their home<\/a> to visit family or friends. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti banned people from walking or bicycling<\/a> outside. More than ten million jobs were lost thanks to lockdowns, a major reason why life expectancy<\/a> in the United States last year had its sharpest plunge since World War Two.<\/p>\n

Australia imposed some of the most heavy-handed restrictions. In August, the state of Victoria dictated an 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew for the Melbourne area and prohibited people from venturing more than three miles from their residence. Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews decreed: \u201cWhere you slept last night<\/a> is where you\u2019ll need to stay for the next six weeks.\u201d Melbourne has been hit by repeated lockdowns<\/a> since then.<\/p>\n

Britain unleashed some of the most absurd restrictions. In June, it prohibited couples who live in different homes from having sex indoors<\/a>. The Independent<\/em> (U.K.) noted, \u201cPeople who have sex outside can be punished under pre-existing laws on outraging public decency and indecent exposure.\u201d Steve Watson reported in January for Summit News<\/em> that British cabinet ministers \u201c have privately debated preventing people from talking to each other<\/a> in the street and in supermarkets, and even preventing people from leaving home more than once per week, and introducing curfews.\u201d British vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi fretted, \u201cI\u2019m worried about some of the pictures I\u2019ve seen of social interactions in parks, if you have to exercise you can go out for exercise only.\u201d Apparently, a national vow of silence is necessary to fight Covid. Summit News<\/em> noted, \u201cPolice are also demanding new powers to force entry into the homes of suspected lockdown violators.\u201d Former British Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption complained last month, \u201cForeign travel is being prohibited, turning us into a hermit island<\/a> on the basis we cannot know what mutations may be lurking out there. The logic of these policies is that we must be locked down for ever simply because the world is a dangerous place.\u201d<\/p>\n

New Zealand has imposed four separate lockdowns in its pursuit to banish the virus from the island, repeatedly placing residents in the capital city under house arrest. In October, the government announced it was creating \u201cquarantine centers\u201d for anyone who tests positive and refuses to obey government orders. One Twitter wag scoffed, \u201cNew Zealand went from gun bans to concentration camps<\/a> in less than a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Covid horrors have been more dramatic in some developing nations. In Uganda, as the Economist<\/em> reported<\/a>, Francis Zaake, a member of parliament, delivered food to his neediest constituents during a pandemic lockdown. But \u201cUganda\u2019s President Yoweri Museveni has ordered that only the government may hand out food aid. Anyone else who does so can be charged with murder, Mr Museveni has threatened, since they might do it in a disorderly way, attract crowds and thereby spread the coronavirus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police and soldiers forcibly entered Zaake\u2019s house and \u201cdragged him into a van and threw him in a cell. He says they beat, kicked and cut him, crushed his testicles, sprayed a blinding chemical into his eyes, called him a dog and told him to quit politics. He claims that one sneered: \u2018We can do whatever we want to you or even kill you\u2026No one will demonstrate for you because they are under lockdown.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In Kenya, police killed at least 15 people during<\/a> brutal crackdowns on alleged violators of lockdown decrees. Amnesty International declared that the Covid-19 pandemic provided \u201cthe perfect storm for indiscriminate mass violence\u201d by the police, thanks to the \u201cpervasive culture of impunity among [police] service members who rely on systemic corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Journalists in many nations risked their hides if they violated politicians\u2019 monopoly on fear-mongering. A<\/strong>lmost a hundred nations have imposed new restrictions on freedom of speech and freedom of the press since the pandemic began. Freedom House<\/a> reported: \u201cGovernments enacted new legislation against spreading \u2018fake news\u2019 about the virus. They also limited independent questioning at press conferences, suspended the printing of newspapers, and blocked websites.\u201d Reporters Without Borders, a nonprofit for press freedom, warned, \u201cMost governments yielded to the temptation, using a variety of repressive measures<\/a>\u2026, of making official channels the only credible and authoritative sources of information.\u201d Many regimes have expanded the definition of \u201cfake news\u201d to justify repression:<\/p>\n