And, of course, governments, when deciding what sort of general behaviour should be tolerated by its citizenry, tend to legislate less for recompense to those whom a citizen may have wronged and more for recompense to the government itself, even if it has not been wronged in the slightest.

Generally speaking, the larger the country, and the older the country, the more extensive the laws.

Of course, in a country that claims to be a democracy, the idea is supposed to be that the will of the people is followed by its elected representatives, which suggests that the people actually have a say in how they are governed – that their government may only impose such laws as the majority agree on.

Well, there’s nothing unusual in that concept. In fact, all contract law is based on the principle that a contract is created that two or more parties agree to. And, with the passage of further laws, the contract would be updated.

However, if I were to ask you to show me a copy of your current contract with your government, I’m guessing that not only could you not produce one, but that it never occurred to you that you should expect one.

That being the case, the only way that we could cobble together a contract would be to list a set of general principles under which you are presently governed. We can use US Law as an example, but much the same laws are common in many other countries.

For the sake of convenience, we shall use the terms “Servant” and “Master” to describe you and your government.

1. The Servant may not leave the Master’s property without permission.

In order to travel outside the US, you are required to present your government-issued, identifying document for approval for you to leave, even briefly. The decision as to whether you may leave is unilaterally for your government to decide.

2. The Servant may not receive income of any kind without disclosure to the Master. 

All income that you receive, whether it be through wages or the sale of goods or services, must be reported to your government.

3. The Servant shall pay a large percentage of all income to the Master. 

The amount taken from you will be determined unilaterally by your Master.

4. The Servant may not own anything that the Master disapproves of. 

The Master shall have the authority to declare any commodity or good unlawful.

5. The Master shall have the authority to fine or imprison the Servant. 

If the Master determines that the Servant has violated any of rules #2-4, he shall be entitled to fine the Servant or lock him in a cage for a period of time to be determined by the Master.

6. The Master shall have the authority to monitor the Servant at all times. 

The Servant’s activities shall be monitored by the Master, through telephone, texts, emails, social media, and other forms of communication.

Of course, these are just the basics, but you get the idea. When looked at in these terms, it becomes difficult to maintain the self-deception that “I live in a democracy. My government exists to serve me, not the other way round.”

Interestingly, in most countries, a contract such as the above does exist under the guise of “Law.” And yet, this is not a contract that the Servant agreed to. It existed before he was born, and he was obligated to adhere to it merely by being born in a given jurisdiction.

Moreover, the Master has the right to change the contract, to the detriment of the Servant, at will and may do so unilaterally. The larger the country, the greater the degree to which the Servant is unable to take part in the discussion as to whether a proposed change in Law has his approval.

Not surprising, then, that the larger the country, the more numerous the laws are likely to be and the more imposing they are likely to be on the Servant.

Still, the relationship of Master and Slave exists most everywhere on the planet, to one degree or another.

And it’s understandable if the reader concludes, “Yeah, well, it’s the same no matter where you go. Whattaya gonna do about it?”

And yet, that’s not exactly true. It’s not the same everywhere.

There are countries, for example, that have no direct taxation of any kind. The individual, therefore, is not required to disclose his income to his government.

Similarly, in countries where there’s no tax on property, the government doesn’t have the power to confiscate property for failure to pay a tax.

Also, there are borders between some countries that are “porous.” Nationality documents are, in some cases, merely waved at border agents and, in some cases, dispensed with entirely.

Most governments declare some items to be illegal, but the First World appears to have a lock on regulating or outlawing virtually every commodity.

And, of course, the monitoring of the populace is quite unequal. The more sophisticated the technology in a country, the greater the surveillance. This does not mean that you have to live in a hut in the jungle to escape surveillance; it means that many countries simply cannot afford to fund or choose not to fund maximum surveillance.

The bad news is that, in any country, we’re enslaved by our government to one degree or another. The good news is that we can, at least at the present, vote with our feet and choose to reside in a location where we have greater autonomy – in some locations, far greater autonomy.

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, most people have no idea what really happens when a government goes out of control, let alone how to prepare…

The coming economic and political collapse is going to be much worse, much longer, and very different than what we’ve seen in the past.

That’s exactly why New York Times best-selling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent guide that will show you exactly how to prepare. Click here to download the PDF now.

(Article cross-posted from Brownstone Institute)

The dirty secret is this: Masks don’t work by controlling the virus. Masks work by controlling the people.

If we’re talking about stopping the spread of the virus, masks simply don’t work.

But if we’re talking about stoking fear, instilling blind obedience to state authorities, sowing discord between citizens, and publicly “outing” skeptics and dissidents – in other words, creating an authoritarian, even totalitarian system of public health – then masks work very well indeed.

MASKS DON’T WORK AT CONTROLLING THE VIRUS

By this late date, it has been established beyond honest scientific doubt that masking is ineffective at stopping the contraction and spread of COVID-19. This is true both at the microscopic level and at the population level.

The early mask mandates regarding COVID-19 were largely “justified” on the assertion that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was not prone to airborne spread. However, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has since been proven to be an airborne virus (like influenza), meaning it can remain circulating in room air for extended periods of time, and spreads in this manner. SARS-CoV-2 viruses have also been proven to be much smaller in size than the holes in cloth and surgical masks.

Therefore, at a microscopic level, Harvey Risch is correct: trying to block the SARS-CoV-2 virus with a surgical mask is quite literally like trying to keep mosquitos out of your yard by erecting a chain-link fence.

At a population level, the latest Cochrane meta-analysis of the available randomized, controlled trials surrounding masking and respiratory viruses concluded that “Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness (ILI)/COVID‐19 like illness compared to not wearing masks. Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing masks.”

(It should be noted that as the mask debate has been resurrected, Cochrane has been under intense pressure by pro-mask entities to addend and modify their comments about this study, to which the organization has capitulated.)

Furthermore, this study is only one in addition to the hundreds of other studies that clearly outline the epidemiologic ineffectiveness and real harms of masks, many of which have been known since at least 2021.

To summarize: at the microscopic level, masks do not stop the exit or entry of the virus into human bodies, and at the population level, mask use has not been shown to provide any benefit, and has been shown to have numerous harms.

MASKS DO WORK AT CONTROLLING PEOPLE

The entire Public Health^TM enterprise in the West has a strong political and authoritarian impulse built into it from its very conception. While a detailed review of this is beyond the scope of this article, it harkens back at least to the figure of Rudolf Virchow, the preeminent 19^th century German physician, opponent of Semmelweis and Darwin, and founder of so-called “social medicine,” who famously wrote that “Medicine is a social science, and politics nothing but medicine at a larger scale.”

The attitude that Public Health^TM should possess the power to dictate national and local political policy for the “public good” (as they, the “experts,” unilaterally determine it to be) has increased over the past century, especially in the United States. Around it there have grown vast, lucrative industries, from which (since at least the Bayh-Dole Act), Public Health^TM officials often profit handsomely. The vaccine industry is only the most obvious of these.

During the COVID era, the authoritarianism of Public Health^TM morphed into totalitarian mode, with the unprecedented lockdowns, school closures, travel restrictions, vaccine mandates, etc. that we all endured. The most visible and most easily enforceable symbol of this power grab were masks.

Masks, even the comically useless ones made of old handkerchiefs, or the filthy, week-old paper surgical ones seen on countless chins, signaled compliance and submission. For the very real Public Health^TM purpose of unquestioning obedience, masks work very well indeed.

Masks are effective at instilling fear in people. Fearful people more readily submit to authority, particularly when that authority promises a solution to the cause of their fear.

Masks are effective as virtue signals of compliance, bolstering the submissive person’s ego. Masks also impose a very strong peer-pressure effect, which pushes uncertain persons toward following the crowd.

Masks are effective at humiliating people. They are uncomfortable, ugly, dirty, and unnatural. They truly are “face diapers.” In a word, masks are degrading. If the ways of the old Eastern bloc taught us anything, it is that the systematic degradation of individuals, especially for patently stupid reasons, is highly effective at promoting totalitarian ends.

Masks are also extremely effective in exposing dissidents. Who dares to stand up against the state? There’s one, right over there. Shame on them. Shun them. Arrest them.

That’s how masks really “work”, and that’s why the Public Health^TM types love them.

That’s why they’re trying to bring them back.

Sound off about this article on the End Medical Tyranny Substack.

About the Author

C.J. Baker, M.D. is an internal medicine physician with a quarter century in clinical practice. He has held numerous academic medical appointments, and his work has appeared in many journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine. From 2012 to 2018 he was Clinical Associate Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester.

As a result, the traditional family unit in the United States is weaker than it has ever been before.  And that is extremely unfortunate, because the family is a fundamental support system in any society.  Without strong families, no society is going to thrive for long.

I knew that the percentage of single person households was rising, but this week I was stunned to learn that it has now reached almost 30 percent in the United States…

Nearly 30 percent of American households comprise a single person, a record high.

Scholars say living alone is not a trend so much as a transformation: Across much of the world, large numbers of people are living alone for the first time in recorded history.

This greatly contributes to the epidemics of loneliness and depression that we are witnessing. Humans were designed to love and be loved, but today so many of us feel so isolated. But it wasn’t always this way.  In fact, only 8 percent of all households in the U.S. were made up of a single person in 1940…

The U.S. Census shows that “solitaries” made up 8 percent of all households in 1940. The share of solo households doubled to 18 percent in 1970 and more than tripled, to an estimated 29 percent, by 2022.

This is another instance where the trend is not our friend, and we are being told that there are a lot of reasons why we have seen such a dramatic shift…

The solo-living movement intersects with several other societal trends. Americans are marrying later, if at all. The nation is aging. The national birthrate is falling. People are living longer — or they were, until the pandemic arrived.

More than anything, perhaps, the rise of single-person households is about women entering the workforce and achieving economic self-sufficiency.

In previous generations, multi-person households were often an economic necessity.

But thanks to the affluence that we have enjoyed in recent decades, more Americans now have the option of living alone.

And it shouldn’t surprise any of us that single person households are particularly common in some of our largest cities…

Living alone is much more common in large cities. Singles now make up more than 40% of households in Atlanta, Seattle, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Denver, according to a paper by the British historian Keith Snell. Half of Manhattan apartments are one-person residences.

Ultimately, what we are witnessing comes down to a fundamental shift in our culture more than anything else.

Previous generations of Americans valued family much more highly than we do, and we value ourselves much more highly than they did.

In other words, we have become exceedingly selfish.

For example, just consider the reasons why one female author says that living alone can be “a dream come true”…

According to Bella DePaulo, author of the upcoming book “Single at Heart”: “Living alone can be a dream come true. You get to curate your own life. You decide when to go to sleep and when to get up, what and when to eat, what to watch or to listen to for entertainment, and how warm or cool your place will be.”

Having some time to yourself can be nice for a few hours.

But how empty are you going to feel after you have nobody to share your life with year after year?

In addition to training our young people to be selfish, we have also trained them to think of children as “burdens” that should be avoided if you want to enjoy life.

Earlier today, I came across an article about a man that had a vasectomy at 34 years of age just so that he and his wife can be free to do whatever they want…

A young couple are child-free so they can be ‘selfish’, take naps and go on holiday whenever they want – and are so sure they don’t want kids they use extreme birth control.

Indi, 25, and her husband Heraldo Uribe, 34, are intentionally child-free and consider themselves as DINKS – which stands for ‘dual income no kids’.

I am sure that might be fun for a while. But they will never get to see their kids grow up. And they will never have grandchildren. And there will never be any family reunions when they get older. And there won’t be anyone to take care of them when they are near the end of their lives.

On a broader level, how are we going to maintain our Social Security system now that our birth rate has been way below replacement level for many years?

We aren’t even producing enough babies to replace ourselves, and so there simply is not going to be enough people paying into the system to support our rapidly aging population.

Thankfully, some young people are waking up and realizing that marriage and family should be a priority.

In fact, one woman is actually offering $5,000 if you can find the right man for her to marry…

In a viral video, which has so far amassed over 556,000 views, she revealed that she had previously made this deal with her friends, and her boss, but was now ready to open it up to the ‘general public.’

She said: ‘So the offer is if you introduce me to my husband and I marry him, I will give you $5,000 dollars.

‘I don’t have to stay married to him for long, I can get divorced from him in 20 years, it doesn’t matter, but if you introduce to me a man that I walk down the aisle and get married to, I will give you $5,000.’

Of course she isn’t going to marry just anyone.

She has some pretty stringent requirements for her future spouse, and that includes being at least six feet tall…

She noted that she wanted her future husband to be between the ages of 27 and 40, like sports, be a good communicator, be at least six-foot, and have good wit, banter, and the ability to poke fun at her.

The 34-year-old also noted that she doesn’t want the man she marries to do any drugs, adding that she has no preference on where they live or what their political or religious stances are.

I will never understand why so many women have a height requirement.

Love can often arrive in an unexpected package.

And we all need to remember that marriage and family are absolutely critical to the overall success of our society.

Unfortunately, more Americans than ever are rejecting traditional values, and so we are steamrolling down a road that doesn’t lead anywhere good. Living to please ourselves may seem gratifying for a while, but in the end it leads to great emptiness. On the other hand, loving others often involves great sacrifice, but in the end it can lead to great fulfillment.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Article cross-posted from The Economic Collapse Blog.