First Goes Law, Then Goes Democracy

Stacey Rudin

– January 15, 2021

In his 1948 book, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology, C.S. Lewis wrote:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

Righteous moral busybodies flourish in our “COVID-19”-obsessed society. They exert social pressure mandating the sharing of previously sacrosanct private information, such as health status and travel itineraries. This creates a nightmarish world of social flagellation in which we are shamed for celebrating holidays with our families, or going out for exercise within seven days of crossing a state line. Our acquaintances must have this information about our comings and goings to ensure we are not potentially diseased.

Even if we never stand within six feet of one another, our acquaintances will sentence us to home confinement for a period of weeks for the sin of traveling for leisure. We must submit to testing if we were present in the general vicinity (50-feet-ish to 50-yards-ish) of a “case” (asymptomatic included) during an indeterminate period (a few days-ish to a few weeks-ish). If we seem doubtful about any such mandate, or dare to point out that the CDC rules are less stringent, that means we do not care about human life and should be generally avoided.

Our acquaintances judge the content of our character by our dedication to face coverings, or lack thereof. Tools of repressive regimes now serve to establish who is, and who is not, a “good person.” Businesses require masks for everyone because an unknowable number of our peers might complain if someone opts out, despite the fact that millions of people are already immune, a vaccine is available, and the busybodies themselves have masks, double masks, shields, and social distancing ready at hand to “stay safe.”

Perhaps they resent having to comply with these measures themselves, and wish everyone else to suffer because they have to. Perhaps they are genuinely convinced that this soul-crushing lunacy is really necessary. Whatever it is, we will never know, because the discussion itself is too awkward to have. We must submit to the collective will or live as hermits.

The busybodies would argue that the government — not them — is issuing these rules, but a superficial reading reveals that governments know they lack the legal authority to enforce these dictates. The post-travel “quarantine” rules of New Jersey governor Phil “the-Bill-of-Rights-is-above-my-pay-grade” Murphy, for example, state that they are “voluntary but expected” (emphasis in original). This fact also comes out when politicians are sued: in court, they aver that their draconian measures are mere suggestions.

This is a brilliant stratagem. It conveniently bypasses the rule of law to achieve desired behavior control, straining social relationships in the absence of legal enforcement powers. By exploiting our social relationships and turning our peers into a police force, governments make themselves into judge, jury, and executioner. There is not even a right to a fair trial. The end result is a shredded societal fabric, ever-looming ostracism, rampant awkwardness, underground rule-breaking, resentment, frustration, and distrust.

There are murmurings from Anthony Fauci, Klaus Schwab, Joe Biden, Bill Gates, and the media that these pervasive rules-that-aren’t-really-rules will need to continue at least until 2022. Of course, their deadlines notoriously creep forward, starting with “two weeks to flatten the curve,” which became “12 months to stop the spread,” which is now morphing into “five years (more?) to eliminate death by infectious disease.” Are we meant to get used to this?

Social conditioning “is the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within [it].” Generally, whoever controls the flow of information (the narrative) controls behavior, and the longer a behavior is practiced, the more “normal” it becomes. Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud’s nephew and an expert on propaganda and public relations, described how a minority elite can use a system of social conditioning to assert their dominance and willpower:

“If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it . . .

In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons . . . who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses.”

Sociologist Dalton Conley likewise states that “a dominant group” can exercise “moral and intellectual leadership” throughout society by “winning the voluntary ‘consent’ of popular masses.” We can see this happening now. Our friends are convinced that they — and we — must comply with regulations because there is a terrifying disease afoot. These beliefs lead to certain behaviors, which neatly advance the widely publicized post-pandemic “Great Reset” (“Build Back Better”) agenda:

Many of the tech behaviors that we were forced to adopt during [lockdown] will through familiarity become more natural. If [fear of germs] considerations become paramount, we may decide, for example, that a cycling class in front of a screen at home . . . is safer (and cheaper!).

The same reasoning applies to many different domains like flying to a meeting (Zoom is safer, cheaper, greener and much more convenient), driving to a distant family gathering for the weekend (the WhatsApp family group is not as fun but, again, safer, cheaper and greener) or even attending an academic course (not as fulfilling, but cheaper and more convenient).

The longer we practice these behaviors, the more conditioned we become. Most people are unaware of this motive — even though it’s openly admitted in at least one book — since our leaders widely broadcast less complex intentions of “keeping everyone safe.” Eminently reasonable people realize lockdown is conceptually preposterous, but believe our leaders are simply operating in error. Human beings generally look for (and believe) simple explanations and default to trusting others — plus, “stay home, save lives” has a nice ring to it.

With their attention hyper-focused on “stopping a virus,” our friends will never dig deep enough into the wider post-pandemic agenda to understand that ostracizing peers who do not comply with government mandates plays right into a wider plan. “Reflexive law” — exactly what we are unwittingly practicing now— is the legal paradigm long envisioned as necessary to the implementation of the U.N.’s “Sustainable Development” agenda:

“Sustainable Development’s broad sweep strains our intellectual grasp of its meaning and outruns the capacity of our current legal and political systems to channel society’s activities toward its achievement . . . there is no doubt that sustainable development needs new paradigms to transform it from visionary rhetoric to a viable political goal.”

The novel legal paradigm of “reflexive law” was first envisioned in 1982 by German legal scholar Guenther Tuebner, who predicted that public behavior could be forced to conform to desired standards via various pressures exerted outside the government (law-making) and legal (law-enforcing) systems. In this system, compliance is deemed “voluntary” even when the pressures exerted to achieve it are manipulative and based on false pretenses, meaning propaganda is well within bounds.

A practical example will animate the concept. A group of farmers and ranchers live and work in a river valley. A radical environmental group submits a complaint accusing them of causing environmental damage. No substantive proof is submitted, merely an a priori accusation, but the charge itself is sufficient to set in motion a chain of events resulting in community groups and NGOs “shaming” the farmers and ranchers into compliance with the radical group’s desires.

This specific case is described in the book Greening NAFTA, released in 2003 by Stanford University Press. The authors call the force at work against the farmers and ranchers “reflexive law” because “it seeks to influence public and private behavior without the threat of enforcement of traditional, sanction-based ‘hard’ law.” No actual legal process is used at all. Instead, the individuals to be controlled are strong-armed into compliance via public abuse. (Sound familiar?)

“This experience reveals two powerful incentives at work: shame and the desire to be virtuous . . . In a post-Holocaust world, human rights NGOs have effectively used shame to induce compliance with universal human rights norms. Also, voluntary pollution reduction has been achieved when [there is pressure to reduce] discharges . . .[achieved] through public shaming.

Shaming works well with pollution, especially toxic pollution, because it draws on deep, perhaps irrational, fears of exposure to the risk of serious illness and an abhorrence of bodily injury.”

This statement reveals something truly terrifying, something we are currently witnessing in practice. If an entity seeking control over us can scare other people — our peers — into acting against us, into damaging us, they will win. We will have to comply. Who are we going to sue?

An actor seeking to generate fear sufficient to motivate our neighbors into harming us has two prime options: pollution and infectious disease. Coincidentally, Klaus Schwab cites “climate change” and “pandemics” as the basis to argue our world must change forever — it needs a “Great Reset” — to avoid certain demise. Perhaps it’s unrelated, but Schwab’s organization, the World Economic Forum, formally committed six months before the pandemic to advancing the U.N.’s “Sustainable Development” agenda:

The World Economic Forum and the United Nations signed today a Strategic Partnership Framework [to] jointly accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The framework … will enable a more strategic and coordinated approach towards delivering impact.

“Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals is essential for the future of humanity. The World Economic Forum is committed to supporting this effort, and working with the United Nations to build a more prosperous and equitable future,” said Klaus Schwab, World Economic Founder and Executive Chairman.

What a bouquet of coincidences! The WEF partners with the U.N. to advance Sustainable Development. Sustainable Development envisions a legal paradigm bypassing legislatures and courts entirely via the exploitation of social pressures. Such pressures can only be generated with fear: in situations where peers can be convinced that they are at risk, and will only “be safe” if everyone’s behavior conforms to certain standards. And then, what do you know: a pandemic presents itself!

Social conditioning takes time, and the same actors who initially pushed lockdowns — Shannon Tiezzi from The Diplomat suggests that Xi Jinping “senses an opportunity in the COVID-19 crisis (and the chaotic U.S. response) to strength China’s role as a global leader”— now state that they will need to continue “at least until 2022.” Oh, and we should never expect a return to normal, because “pandemics” and “climate change” prove that our “old normal” was “not sustainable.”

All of the entities pushing this narrative openly admit that a tech-focused future — driven by a public seeking to be “kept safe from germs” — will “better harmonize humanity with nature.” These words are also found where? In the U.N.’s longstanding 2030 Agenda for “Sustainable Development.” Now, circumstantial evidence is not conclusive proof, but the coincidences are mounting.

If this agenda is indeed to be forced on us by ruse, via the exploitation of a pandemic, one must wonder if its masterminds are remotely trustworthy. Why can’t they openly explain their intentions, if they are so wonderful? Today, they implement a covert replacement for the rule of law, one that subverts our will to theirs with no right of appeal. Tomorrow, they replace democracy.

Republished from the author’s blog.

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