How did we lose our freedom of speech? Is it irreversible?

Hetty58

I've heard it all a hundred times, that all consuming conviction that, somehow, every government in the world are out to control our minds (and probably implant microchips too) destroy our freedom and turn us into zombies. Stop, think - ask why would they want to do that? How could they possibly do that? Then consider whether you have fallen victim to the mass paranoia scam - born in the USA of course. (Oh dear, we've obviously failed dramatically as educators.)

Controlling the population is exactly what governments (and religions) do, and nobody does it better than China, although Iran controls the people well enough from their perspective.
A democracy like the UK gives most of us the opportunity to live well if we conform to societies “norms” and take advantage of those opportunities. Those of us that can’t for whatever reason, are supported at a fairly basic level by the benefits system.

We can question whatever we want, those in government get to decide policy largely on what is going to win the most votes at the next election. There is no long term plan it’s up to us an individuals to decide our own path.

Hetty58

I've heard it all a hundred times, that all consuming conviction that, somehow, every government in the world are out to control our minds (and probably implant microchips too) destroy our freedom and turn us into zombies. Stop, think - ask why would they want to do that? How could they possibly do that? Then consider whether you have fallen victim to the mass paranoia scam - born in the USA of course. (Oh dear, we've obviously failed dramatically as educators.)

Are students investigating the role of the supranational these days?

I do think we're controlled by governments. But I think we can read around media sources (check overseas medias) and work out an idea of approximately where the truth might be.

I almost never believe the British media. They play a huge part in the brain washing of the British public. They control elections, controlled what we saw about the pandemic and tell us who to love and who to hate. You've only got to read all the cr*p pumped out about H&M to see that. But I think there is a huge section of the population that like that and want to be guided/controlled.

ronib, students should develop critical thinking skills, investigate sources, question funding and motives - at least. Of course, governments seek to control their own populations - but how can anyone believe they'd all be working together?

Hetty58

I've heard it all a hundred times, that all consuming conviction that, somehow, every government in the world are out to control our minds (and probably implant microchips too) destroy our freedom and turn us into zombies. Stop, think - ask why would they want to do that? How could they possibly do that? Then consider whether you have fallen victim to the mass paranoia scam - born in the USA of course. (Oh dear, we've obviously failed dramatically as educators.)

Exactly.
Regarding Neil Ferguson, he was predicting, from thoroughly rigorous analysis, the level of harm from Covid 19, IF NO ACTION was taken. As action WAS taken (vaccines, lockdowns, masks etc.), there was not this level of harm. It doesn't mean his prediction was faulty; rather what COULD have happened without intervention. (This is my understanding of it, from doing my 'own research').

Hetty58

ronib, students should develop critical thinking skills, investigate sources, question funding and motives - at least. Of course, governments seek to control their own populations - but how can anyone believe they'd all be working together?

China certainly controls every aspect of life, if you don’t conform you are sent to a re-education centre for as long as it takes. Of course there are incentives work hard, follow the party line brings its rewards. China has one of the highest income differentials in the world, but if you step outside the state policy you fall very quickly.

That’s an extreme example, in the west so called critical thinking is bad, because if you are for example a teacher you are given a syllabus to teach and rules that are established by others above you. Some of us are lucky enough to be self employed and get to make the rules, which is great if you are successful, if not you go back to others rules.

Hetty58

ronib, students should develop critical thinking skills, investigate sources, question funding and motives - at least. Of course, governments seek to control their own populations - but how can anyone believe they'd all be working together?

Hetty58 not so much a belief system but if you can imagine a whole body of so called experts advising governments worldwide, students might find it intriguing to analyse the role of such bodies. WHO, United Nations, NATO , IMF etc spring to mind.

Well we’re evidently being controlled by the supermarkets and by the media and here comes someone else to tell us with an aggressive post, claiming to be omniscient, telling us what we should/shouldn’t believe.
🥱🥱

I have had all the vaccinations offered to me as have my family. However there has now been a lot of research which says mask wearing made little difference to whether you caught Covid or not, they are not anywhere near as effective as the government preached and wearing them 8 hours a day in class contributed massively to huge increases in teenage poor mental health which will have an impact on successful treatment for at least a decade.

I don’t know about freedom of speech but the facts were twisted to “brainwash” the population. Advocates against them for schools, like myself were vilified and nothing changed and I speak from bitter experience which includes two granddaughters who both have poor mental health which wasn’t apparent at a pre Covid

We’ll never conclusively know whether or not masks really helped prevent Covid or not as there was no controlled study at the time. Also the incidence of Covid in those refusing to wear masks against the incidence of Covid in mask wearers was not measured. People will continue to believe and produce data to support their viewpoint.
Some data shows that flu incidence diminished and people even on GN reported fewer colds due to isolation/ mask wearing. Since Covid was also a respiratory tract infection there is good reason to think it impacted on Covid too.
The supermarket staff in our local supermarkets reported fewer colds which they believed was a result of not being sneezed on/coughed on as a result of presence of masks and screens.
I feel for those like my GC who worried about keeping up, especially those taking GCSE or A levels where the impact on future choices was greater.

Re mental health: The concern over wearing masks in class has to be analysed alongside the concern over not being in school, isolation from friends,( mentioned by many children as the thing they had hated most) and the opportunity/ability to participate in online learning (a problem that caused most stress for many children, teens and parents particularly where money was short.
One DD had no apparent mental health issues until she went to Uni, well before Covid or mask wearing.

I don't understand why people still say mask wearing is not shown to be useful regarding virus such as Covid.
A quick search of academic papers shows plenty!
Here's the first I found.
Published in December so fairly recent.
www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-medical-critical-thinking/evidence-shows-masks-work

Hetty58

I've heard it all a hundred times, that all consuming conviction that, somehow, every government in the world are out to control our minds (and probably implant microchips too) destroy our freedom and turn us into zombies. Stop, think - ask why would they want to do that? How could they possibly do that? Then consider whether you have fallen victim to the mass paranoia scam - born in the USA of course. (Oh dear, we've obviously failed dramatically as educators.)

That's exactly what governments have done. Didn't you notice the lockdowns, school closures and the mandates, not to mention the threat of prison sentences in Austria? I would have agreed with you about the paranoia at the start of Covid. I was prepared to believe that Event 201 (Gates Foundation) was a coincidence but it all followed the scenario. When the media provided strong messages about restrictions and then vaccines by "experts", I checked them up and practically all were linked to projects funded by Gates. I didn't think nutty old Klaus Schwab and his coven with their Great Reset could possibly get any traction but they are all talking about it openly now. The last WEF event in Davos had a 2 mile security perimeter around it and they were guarded by thousands of Swiss troops. What did they have to hide if they are trying to make the world a better place for us all? And don't even mention Trudeau!

The conspiracy theories that I and many others binned have now become spoiler alerts. Pfizer's corruption has been exposed (a track record including a $2.3 billion fine a few years ago). The EU (Ursula Von Lederhosen) is on the rack for corruption as well. Thankfully in the US, Bobby Kennedy Jnr has taken out a bunch of lawsuits and in Florida, de Santis is doing the same to bring the CDC, Big Pharma and the others to account.

Thanks to the Lancet and various peer reviews, we now know about the effectiveness, or not, of masks, lockdowns and alternative therapies.

Remembering that this thread is about freedom of speech, I have to say that what is holding everything up is the government control of mainstream media and the willingness of some people to be brainwashed. It is easier to dismiss what is going on than to put some effort into trying to challenge things that so clearly do not make sense. As a generation, we are so lucky to have benefited from parents who went through Hell and high water to provide a world that was happy and safe for us. I for one am not going to let them down by losing the freedom of speech that my father risked his life for.

I think people like you have forgotten just how many people were dying at the start of the pandemic which is an insult to those of us that lost family and friends back then.

choughdancer

Hetty58

I've heard it all a hundred times, that all consuming conviction that, somehow, every government in the world are out to control our minds (and probably implant microchips too) destroy our freedom and turn us into zombies. Stop, think - ask why would they want to do that? How could they possibly do that? Then consider whether you have fallen victim to the mass paranoia scam - born in the USA of course. (Oh dear, we've obviously failed dramatically as educators.)

Exactly.
Regarding Neil Ferguson, he was predicting, from thoroughly rigorous analysis, the level of harm from Covid 19, IF NO ACTION was taken. As action WAS taken (vaccines, lockdowns, masks etc.), there was not this level of harm. It doesn't mean his prediction was faulty; rather what COULD have happened without intervention. (This is my understanding of it, from doing my 'own research').

Precisely. No one knows how many people would have died if Johnson had allowed it to rip through the population which is what he wanted to do.

You have a very hectoring, long-winded, 'mansplaining' way of posting. We're not a bunch of old grannies sitting knitting in the corner whilst world events pass us by.

We get it - no need to be so verbose!

OP certainly hasn’t suffered from any curtailment of freedom of speech - on the contrary.
Might not be a bad thing 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

Neil Fergusons predictions were made to scare the bejesus out of people. It worked. Did he ask his married lover to wear rubber gloves and a mask for the afternoon rumpy pumpy, I doubt it. Yet millions of you were practically held prisoner in your own homes.

Just last week I was in Austria Verdika We were in Vienna where the wearing of masks is still mandatory on public transport.

This rule does not apply to the rest of the country

Now I am sure that anyone who has ever visited Vienna will agree that the city has an amazing system of public transport - trains (both overground and underground), trams and busses.

The public transport system in Vienna is very reliable.

However last week we boarded an underground train which was stationary at a station and remained stationary for quite a long time so that more and more passengers got onto the train. The delay in moving off was apparently due to some problem on the line which did get fixed but by this time we were like sardines on the train.

I was so glad that every one of my fellow passengers was wearing a mask.

MerylStreep

Neil Fergusons predictions were made to scare the bejesus out of people. It worked. Did he ask his married lover to wear rubber gloves and a mask for the afternoon rumpy pumpy, I doubt it. Yet millions of you were practically held prisoner in your own homes.

Ferguson's 'do as I say, not as I do' attitude doesn't negate the fact that lockdowns reduced the number of people infected.

Whatever the doubters say, the NHS was overwhelmed at times and many thousands died - IMO things would have been much worse if no guidelines were issued.

Ferguson fornicated and Number 10 partied, fortunately the majority of us followed the guidelines.

I don't see why so many are anti mask wearing. As someone who picked up a virus whenever I flew somewhere I wish that they had been compulsory years ago. On one occasion when we flew to Italy I borrowed one of my DH's work masks to wear on the plane. I wore it for a bit but felt stupid and everyone seemed to look at me. Needless to say, I spent few days in bed with a chest infection whilst my DH went out and about by himself.

Pre covid, we flew to America and a large proportion of the passengers wore masks. They were Asian.

Whole twitter thread about the latest meta-analysis of masking studies. The one that claims mask wearing is ineffective

twitter.com/tomaspueyo/status/1630000803141255169

and another one about the same meta-analysis

twitter.com/trishgreenhalgh/status/1629827584568565760

A deeply flawed paper it seems

Wearing masks did not do any harm and it may have helped many, so you go with the flow and do what the majority feel comfortable with.

With hindsight I’m rather doubtful that masks, test and trace, social distancing did much good at all. Early use of vaccine in my opinion did a lot to reduce the severity of the virus

GagaJo

I do think we're controlled by governments. But I think we can read around media sources (check overseas medias) and work out an idea of approximately where the truth might be.

I almost never believe the British media. They play a huge part in the brain washing of the British public. They control elections, controlled what we saw about the pandemic and tell us who to love and who to hate. You've only got to read all the cr*p pumped out about H&M to see that. But I think there is a huge section of the population that like that and want to be guided/controlled.

So you would prefer anarchy to democracy.

Weird.

A large section of the population do believe the rubbish in the popular media, add to that those that don’t care it’s probably a majority

I think some of the rubbish on social media is actually worse Katie.
People with no understanding at all spout nonsense as facts.