When Roger Scruton arrived in Czechoslovakia in 1979, he found himself helping many teachers “who had been forbidden to teach” and “students who had been forbidden to learn”. He was obviously aware he was travelling to a country which under the cover of “people’s democracy” suppressed people’s views and punished any form of dissent. Still, he was amazed by how palpable the lack of freedom actually felt, and the extent to which it “invaded and poisoned relations between people”.
Scruton gave a lecture on Wittgenstein to a private circle of intellectuals. He was quick to notice, however, that “they were far more interested in the fact that I was visiting at all”, rather than deliberations on the rather impenetrable Austrian thinker. The sense of togetherness was, according to the recollection of a Czech dissident, “the most important morale booster for us”.
It wasn’t just intellectuals who were in peril. The country, Scruton discovered, contained a sophisticated network of secret agents and snitches. Denunciation was prolific and social scrutiny omnipresent. No one, including the most inconsequential citizens, could feel safe from the Big Brother of the state and social pressure of their peers. The Czech author and playwright Václav Havel made this atmosphere famous when describing the deliberations of a greengrocer, who had to place a pro-regime slogan on display in his shop to avoid being denounced or judged unfavourably by his neighbours.
It is 2024, and in many ways the positions of Britain and Czechoslovakia (now Czechia) have reversed. It is now in Prague where freedom of speech and thought is tolerated, and it is in Britain where it is under assault – sometimes on the social level, but increasingly on the legal level as the recent legislation in Scotland shows. True, people seldom go to prison for expressing their opinions – like Havel did in Czechoslovakia – but lives have been destroyed nonetheless. Sackings, cancellations and character assassinations have proliferated in the country that was once hailed as the cradle of liberalism.
“I think it is an irony that those who once helped us cannot help themselves now,” says Luděk Bednář, a doyen of Czech journalism and once a visitor of a Scruton lecture. Back in the 1970s, he was optimistic about the proverbial arc of history, and participated in underground classes with the vision of restoring justice to an unjust world. Yet the ascent of ‘wokeism’ has made him sceptical about the West’s future. Particularly in Britain and the U.S., he believes, a social movement has been launched which it will be impossible to stop. “It is exactly like here in the 1950s,” he says, recalling how Leftist intellectuals happily jumped on the wagon of illiberal Communist ideology. Famous writers Milan Kundera and Pavel Kohout are just two of many examples.
Another former dissident, Zbyněk Petráček, disagrees. In 1977 he signed a declaration called Charter 77 which appealed to the Communist regime of Czechoslovakia to respect human rights. Paradoxically, the Government did all it could to suppress it and led an all-out campaign against its signatories. “I’m deeply worried about some tendencies in the West,” says Petráček. “When the progressives attack Elon Musk for his reactivation of some Twitter accounts, it does smell fishy to anyone who lived in a dictatorial regime. However, I will still claim that the situation in the West is different than it was here. Primarily because you still have people such as Elon Musk who allow you to post on Twitter whatever you want. We didn’t have anyone like that.“
What Petráček describes might be seen as the difference between Orwellian dictatorship and the ‘social tyranny’ described by John Stuart Mill. Mill says that when society “executes its own mandates” – refusing to tolerate some opinions – it can launch an assault “more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life”. In other words, it might not be relevant that the American or British Governments generally still uphold freedom of speech under the law. The problem as seen by Mill is the power of public opinion and the way in which perceived heresies – such as ‘all lives matter’ or ‘a trans woman is not a woman’ – can lead to social ostracism.
Historical parallels can only take us so far. It might not be the most important thing whether it was worse to be a free thinker in 1970s Czechoslovakia than it is in 2020s Britain. The bottom line is that the free thinkers of Britain feel increasingly in peril, and although they can – for the time being – publish their opinions on social networks, they still face the danger of being sacked by their employers or having their reputation destroyed by a mob of noisy activists. That, for many, is as daunting as the prospect of being persecuted by the state.
What is needed here is a voice from outside. What Czechs can offer to the British is the extended hand once offered to them by Roger Scruton. There are still places in this world which have not gone astray – and people there still care about the experiences of the persecuted. Also, the Czech experience shows that it sometimes takes a group of freedom loving people, however small, to put their neck on the line. The time for the British has come. What they face now might be best defined as social tyranny but much more ominous threats could be in the making. The case of Scotland has shown the way. It is Roger Scrutons Britain needs now – in the future it might need much more than that.
Štěpán Hobza is opinion columnist at Lidové Noviny.
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Nothing surprises me about the adverse effects of the C1984 “vaccines” as adverse effects is what they were designed to produce. And realistically we don’t know how bad these adverse effects and the ones not yet identified will turn out to be.
There can only be a steady seepage of bad news in the months and years to come related to the poisonous injections.
It was clear to me right from the word go that the key element missing from the testing of the jabs was the passage of time. I decided back in early 2020 that I would not take any newly developed vaccine until at least 5 years had elapsed, and all resulting safety data had been analysed by independent researchers. I now think that even that timescale was optimistic.
As someone who has worked in software development all my life, I likened it to a new software product being brought to market. As a rule, never buy version 1.0 – because you will be the bug tester. I prefer waiting until the major kinks have been ironed out.
Not so long ago a new malaria vaccine was brought to market – trials took over 30 years. When asked why it had taken so long, one of the development team replied “Because you need to make sure that it’s safe.”
I can understand taking some short cuts if you will only be vaccinating people at high risk – those who are perhaps already in their twilight years, who are unlikely to live long enough to manifest long term problems. And in the early days we were told that these rushed new pharmaceuticals were supposed to only be given to those people.
I would like to see an enquiry into how the jabs came to be pushed out to everyone – even small children. Those responsible for such decisions have a lot to answer for.
“I would like to see an enquiry into how the jabs came to be pushed out to everyone – even small children.”
Once the realisation dawns that the injections are all about depopulation it is clear why these poisons were pushed to everyone. As Dr Mike Yeadon has said – no other explanation is possible.
I certainly had some very dark moments during the early days. When you possess an enquiring mind and a need to try to understand what’s happening – and yet nothing seems to make logical sense – the mind is capable of putting the puzzle pieces together in creative ways, and reaching some very biblical interpretations.
I very much appreciated MY’s courage however in speaking out publicly against his former paymasters, and I think he was spot on about “convergent opportunism”.
I also agree that certain groups in positions of power are committed Malthusians, regard humans as a destructive plague on the planet, and would like to see the planet significantly depopulated.
I’m just not convinced that the jabs were designed expressly for that purpose though – I lean towards a more sadly mundane position, involving arrogance, stupidity, cowardice, groupthink, peer-pressure, wilful blindness, greed and venality.
https://expose-news.com/2022/12/29/jane-goodall-is-not-a-kindly-grandmother/
Maybe this will change your view.
https://expose-news.com/2022/12/28/30by30-is-the-biggest-land-grab-in-history/
Or this which is really chilling.
I believe it is a bio-weapon …. and I’ve never heard of a weapon which WASN’T intended to kill or maim.
I agree that the “vaccines” ARE harmful, but still remain open-minded regarding whether they were actually DESIGNED TO BE harmful. That implies that the designers intended to kill and injure millions of people. Who are these designers and what is their motivation? Is it the Chinese or some kind of global elite grouping? Is the motivation financial (profit or avoidance of pension / healthcare costs)? Is the motivation depopulation (even though depopulation isn’t an issue in developed countries)?
I suggest that the Chinese knew that the spike protein was both pathogenic and highly mutable — thus their delivery of the genetic code for the spike protein in 2020 for the production of genetic vaccine was highly suspect. That said, it is likely that the action of the mRNA vaccines in promoting viral (spike) tolerance was a surprise for them.
The actions of the pharma giants in making use of secret deals and obscene benefits, etc, looks to be opportunistic. That they are content to suppress information about the negatives of their products is entirely in character, and should be no surprise.
Yes this very paper has been making waves all over substack, with everybody diving into their own take on what this means but basically arriving at the same conclusion; that this is seriously bad news for the multi-jabbed. I’d say, especially off the back of the recent Cleveland Clinic paper, it just seems to confirm what experts have been predicting and hypothesizing for a while now and it adds weight to their argument, that these bioweapons are doing untold damage on the human race and they are maliciously allowed to continue to do so. Only time will tell to what extent the damage and if we can recover from this but I think the low vaxxed nations, ( such as the African countries ) who once upon a time were being used as an example of inequity with these jabs, will now be in a much better position than many countries in the West. I could take my pick but here’s el gato malo’s take on the paper;
“leaky (non-sterilizing) vaccines are exceedingly dangerous. there is a reason we don’t use them. viruses that can still replicate and spread get forced toward variants that take advantage of the vaccine and its having locked you into one, narrow response vector. and if they can find variants that elicit no IgG3 and lots of IgG4, they get to run riot.
and if you have created a widespread homogeneous herd immunity profile that can be taken advantage of, you’re really in for it.
everybody gets this and no one can generate sound immunity.
this would be entirely unprecedented in human history.
this proposed method of action could be telling us a ton about all the observed issues with excess mortality all over the high vaxx regions, about the fact that it takes the vaxxed longer to clear covid virus, that they carry higher viral loads, AND that they experience “mild” seeming symptoms but then often see some other pathology emerge with sudden severity.
if your immune system is being told to stand down and ignore virus, the virus can hang around a long time and do A LOT of damage and you’re not really going to notice. you won’t get the inflammation and perhaps fever. you’re walking around infected and contagious, but with no sense that you are.”
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/are-covid-vaccines-causing-persistent
As far as I am concerned Mogs the guy is unreadable.
Oh, how come?😯
He refuses to use capital letters and he is far from skilled in the use of language. As far as I am concerned refusing to use capital letters is insulting to your readership and indicates a pompous and self-important personality. Can’t stand the guy.
🤣 Yes the lack of capital letters is silly as there really is no excuse, even if English isn’t your first language. I don’t know if they think they’re somehow being edgy or trying to be different to others. I can’t work out their gender actually. I’m veering towards male going by the language but the cats throw me as more females like cats than males I think.🤔
Anyway, I’m only there for the cute 🐈 🐱 😄
This is a more understandable article on the subject:
https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/svg/2615.svg THE WRONG ANTIBODY ☙ Monday, December 26, 2022 ☙ C&C NEWS https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/svg/1f9a0.svg (coffeeandcovid.com)
The “Bad Cattitude” site has just published a comparison of Scandinavian countries’ excess deaths, with Sweden having expected peaks prior to the jab’s appearance, but all other countries having persistent increases only since the jab. All countries now have similar “vaccination” rates.
The plausible explanation is that exposure to the virus pre-jab provides good long term protection against all-cause mortality, but being jabbed prior to exposure does not.
To me, this ties in with the IgG4 data, as well as our knowledge on humerus versus mucosal immunity.
Another piece of the jigsaw for those who retain the power of cognitive thought.
Wow, I’m so glad I decided not to get my third dose! After very grudgingly getting the first two in April/May 2021, I stopped there. The third dose seems to be the Rubicon.
I clearly remember Prof Bhakdi saying in one of his early podcasts back in 2020/21 warning about the dangers of the spike protein in the jabs, that if you have the first two jabs for goodness sake don’t have a third as the dangers will increase significantly with every subsequent jab.
You can find many of his interviews/podcasts on Bitchute ….. he is well worth watching.