Fear is powerful. It paralyzes, stopping people in their tracks, breaking them down so that they will submit to its will. Fear can lead to destruction, to ruin, to misery. But for those who crave power and control, it is one of the greatest things on this Earth. To them, it is a weapon waiting to be harnessed for their own gain.

Now I have touched on this before in previous pieces on COVID-19, government, and media, so you’re probably wondering: Why am I writing about it again? Because people are doing the same thing they did before with the latest outbreak in the Northern Beaches. Just like before, Governments are capitalizing on it to give themselves more power and control. Just like before, the media are sensationalizing it to create fear amongst the people. And just like before, people are capitulating to the fear. That is why we need to talk about fear again, this time more in depth than before, particularly in the context of COVID-19.

Obviously, at the beginning of the year, when COVID-19 was still new and unknown, it was reasonable to fear it. After all, human beings typically fear the unknown. That fear was rational. But now that we know more about this virus and how it works, along with the fact that it has a 99.8% recovery rate, fear of COVID-19 is generally irrational. But because governments and the media saw how effective fear was in controlling the general population in the first round of lockdowns towards the start of the year, they now know that weaponizing it is the most effective way of maintaining control over the public. Governments use it to ensure the people are subservient to their will. The media use it to create stories that they can use for their publications and television news programs to boost their ratings, and, by extension, profit. This has always been about money, control, and power.

Although the media would have you believe otherwise, the outbreak in Sydney’s Northern Beaches is not something to panic about. What the media will not tell you, because it does not suit their fear-inducing narrative, is that NSW has an excellent contact tracing system which has already traced all chains of transmission and figured out the original case (patient zero). If the media reported this, it may reduce the level of fear amongst the people, something that would not benefit the media at all. They are always looking for good stories, and COVID-19 has provided them with a never-ending pool of content. What the journalism industry has become is truly a disgrace. We are in desperate need of more good and honest journalists.

Since the outbreak in the Northern Beaches, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has made the decision to issue a five-day stay at home order, amongst other restrictions, for those who reside there, which has now come into effect. She has also imposed restrictions on the Greater Sydney area, including limiting the number of people you can have at your home, bringing back the four square metre rule, putting limits on how many can attend indoor gatherings, only 20 people dancing at wedding parties, and no singing/chanting except for places of worship. These restrictions will last until at least Wednesday, two days before Christmas. The four square metre rule will likely be in place beyond that point. These restrictions on Greater Sydney are arbitrary and unnecessary. This outbreak will likely be dealt with within the week.

It is at this point that NSW should be extremely grateful certain others are not running the State. If the Left were to have it their way, Daniel Andrews would be brought up to run point on the NSW response. We must recall that Andrews and his Government were responsible for Victoria’s “second wave”, which killed over 800 people, and left others without their businesses, jobs, and livelihoods, leading to a mental health crisis, and the annihilation of small business, Victoria’s economy, and, by extension, almost a quarter of Australia’s economy. Unwilling to bear any responsibility whatsoever, we still don’t know whose call it was to set up the ill-fated Hotel Quarantine as it was. So no, NSW do not need Daniel Andrews and his daily fearmongering press conferences.

Others on the Left, including former ABC journalist Quentin Dempster and the ABC’s “expert” on COVID-19 Dr Norman Swan, have called for the Premier to lockdown completely, mandate masks, and rush forward an “effective vaccine”. Constant lockdowns cause and exacerbate mental health conditions. When mask mandates have been brought in in places all over the world, cases have not decreased. In fact, most of the time they have increased. To put it bluntly, masks do not seem to work, considering the very fine particles that this virus travels in. And as to an “effective vaccine”; such a thing is not possible to create and mass produce in less than a year. It typically takes 8-10 years to create a safe and effective vaccine. We really do not know what adverse effects the current rushed vaccines may have on those who take them 5-10 years down the track. To read more on this, see my recent piece “Vaccine Skepticism Is Justified” (link here: https://jjsoutlook.com/2020/12/12/vaccine-skepticism-is-justified/). Again, these responses are just plain unnecessary and destructive. Unfortunately, we cannot expect anything less from those at the National Broadcaster. Their goal, like all other elites in this, is to instill fear in the population and benefit from it in the form of money and power.

Predictably, other State Premiers have reacted to the Northern Beaches outbreak in the typical fashion of overreacting. Tasmania have closed off to NSW (the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race has also been cancelled for the first time in its 76-year history, again for no good reason). The Northern Territory have told those returning from NSW they will need to quarantine for 14 days upon entering the Territory. Those from NSW wishing to travel north to Queensland are now required to obtain a permit unless of course you are from Greater Sydney, in which case you cannot enter Queensland at all. Victoria and South Australia have closed its borders to all of Greater Sydney, with the former adding the Central Coast (which only has one case). And, as always, Western Australia’s Premier Mark McGowan has reinstated the hard border closure to all of NSW. Premiers will probably tell you they have made these decisions based on the “health advice”. When asked to show you that health advice, they will refuse to do so, because quite frankly there probably is none to justify these arbitrary measures. Premiers are using the borders as their political playthings, abusing their power for their own political gain. These measures are purely political. They are only interested in power and control.

And so, we return to fear. Those who control fear, control the people. Over the course of the last year, we have seen that demonstrated the world over, including right here in Australia. People have become more and more subservient to government overreach, doing whatever Big Brother tells them to. Those who are awake to this reality can see through the agenda of the elites and those attempting to control the narrative. Yet there are many who have become just like sheep, following governments blindly, masks over their eyes, into the dark abyss that leads directly to hell on Earth. Mask mandates are only the beginning. Next, they will be mandating the vaccine, which will probably end up having significant adverse effects that we will not know about for a few years. Soon enough they will be leading us straight to the Gulags, and those who have followed them blindly will willingly walk in, probably thanking those who put them there for doing so. This is a slippery slope. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “Make yourselves sheep and the wolves will eat you.” The only way to prevent this is to resist the fear and all that goes with it.

Upon the occasion of his first inauguration, Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his speech that “there is nothing to fear but fear itself”. This is true at most times, but none more so than now as COVID-19 gives government and the media the excuse to take more power by instilling fear in the public. At the outset of this piece, I wrote that fear is powerful. That is exactly why it is weaponized. We must learn how to combat this destructive force so that we can live our lives unrestricted, happy, and free.

It is time to stop falling victim to fear. We cannot allow fear to control our lives, to take away what could be joyful memories waiting to be made, to imprison us. We cannot allow it to keep us removed from others, to tear our lives apart. We can no longer live in fear.

Because that is no way to live.