Thanks to the VE Day celebrations, World War II comparisons seem to be common at the moment, with the #StayHomeSaveLives brigades comparing staying at home and watching TV to the men who went to battle against the enemy.
I have been saying for months that saving lives is not all that matters. It matters a lot, but it’s not everything. If saving lives was all that mattered then we would never have gone to war against Germany. We would have saved far more lives by just rolling over and letting them take over the country. Sure we’d have been ruled by the Nazis ever since, but hey, those England and Wales death figures would look so much better than they would have done had we decided to fight Jerry. I mean, they had planes that drop bombs, and guns and tanks and all sorts of shooty and stabby stuff. We’d have lost loads of lives. Seeing as #SaveLives trumps everything, we should have stayed at home and waved at those life-saving Germans from our windows as they rolled into town in their tanks.
You might have had to become a cleaner for the German bigwig who now runs your town, and, okay, your wife might now be in a cockroach-infested lunatic asylum, and sure he might keep your daughters and your friends’ daughters (and some of your sons) in his sex dungeon, but, hey, at least you’re all alive!
No, the point about World War II is that the fighting men risked their lives to battle the Germans and the other Axis powers, knowing that many of them would never come back, in order to preserve our way of life. In order to stop the country being ruled by foreign powers. They threw themselves into the heat of battle, into fields criss-crossed with machine-gun fire, with mortar shells exploding around them, knowing that some of them would cop it, all to defend the freedoms enjoyed by their countrymen. They strapped themselves into flimsy flying tubes with wings to travel all the way to Germany and back again, with anti-aircraft fire all around them, and enemy aircraft intercepting them, knowing that every night fewer aircraft came back than went out, for the express purpose of defending the British way of life.
Defending their culture, their freedoms, their prosperity, their democracy. Their pubs. All those things were worth dying for. It was worth those men risking their lives, at pretty bad odds, for their wives and children and parents and grandparents (and even for other European people), to stop life being worse for them under German rule. So that their children, and future British generations, would not live as slaves, impoverished and beaten-down and miserable and living under martial law. Those things were worse than death.
So don’t any of you #CovidCowards tell me that we need to adopt the World War II spirit to fight Covid-19. Don’t you tell me that staying in your homes and telling people on social media that they’re murderers for going outside is akin to the Blitz spirit. Because those soldiers seriously risked being killed in the most horrific ways, in order to make life better for you. Many of those soldiers gave up their their lives for our freedom and prosperity. They knew that those things mattered, especially for their children and grand-children, so they put their bodies and minds on the line for their futures.
The Covid bed-wetters, however, are putting our hard-won freedom and wealth at serious risk because they are scared of a virus that has at worst a 99.6% survival rate. They are destroying the future for our children because they judge that being exposed to a risk that’s about as bad a World War II soldier faced when he was driven from one training exercise to another is worse than that. They are willing to see the country placed under house arrest indefinitely, which not even the Germans would have brought in to the same extent, just because they think that nothing is worse than one year possibly having a slightly higher death toll than the previous year.
Like those soldiers in World War II, and World War I, I am prepared to risk my life to the same extent to preserve our country and way of life. I am prepared to die to stop my children’s future being wiped out. So take your bullshit World War II analogies and stick them up your arse, #StayHome creeps. You disgust me.
31 thoughts on “Covid-19 and the World War II Spirit”
Well said! We will be watching our PM tonight and I wonder what similarities there will be in in his words and style to Mr Churchill.
Bravo!
The photo of Alexander ‘Boris’ Johnson lighting a candle at the tomb of the unknown warrior, turned my stomach.
It’s the almost religious worship of the NHS I can’t stand. On thursday night the Beeb even played a cringey song about about the NHS at the 8pm worship slot. Who was it who said that the NHS is the nearest thing we have to a national religion? Surely other countries don’t deify their health system like we do.
I’m not usually prone to conspiracy theories, but have been wondering if the government had a quiet word with the Beeb to get them to play up the NHS angle. That and all the mind numbing stories about how people are coping with lockdown by dancing etc.
Well said Hector. I’m of the generation that has been lucky not too have been called upon to defend our freedoms. I am 75, and feel insulted that it assumed by my government that I want the country’s economic future trashed to protect me.
My wife and I would like another 20 years, but not at the expense of the younger generations including our children and grandchildren.
Damn good show, Hector old man! Damned good!
(Apologies for the period-speak.)
I hope it comes back to haunt him.
Spot on. You and a few other dissenters have saved my sanity over the last month or so.
Finally, said it, thank you. Science and perspective, refreshing.
Well said. Why is our government (and so many others) so spineless? There doesn’t appear to be an ounce of rationality in any of those leading us down this dreadful road which can only end in misery and hardship for millions. I find it mind boggling that people can’t see how utterly stupid this is. It is one thing to want to “save lives” but we are trying to save one set of lives and putting everyone else in jeopardy and indirectly “killing” others. Poverty kills too and will continue to kill for years in the wake of this mess. I cannot understand it.
At some point he’ll say “we will beat this virus”, which shows how little he knows about a Coronavirus! Hopefully though our amazing immune system will keep it in check.
We still have the 1968 H3N2 Hong Kong version around today so don’t be too sure about beating this version Boris!
I was 12 in 1968 and remember looking after my 40 something old parents who were quite I’ll for a week. BUT we didn’t close down and wreck the economy we just got on with it. Death toll was close to 33,000 (in a smaller population).
Goverment is politics. Politicians cannot admit to being wrong (ie. spineless). They all tow the Party line and lose their coveted job if they don’t. Sadly we no longer have democracy where our local representitives represent us – it’s all lip service ….and to put it crudely; arse licking!
How about a movement to get Lord Sumption to head up the inevitable inquiry? He’s been very sound on this from the start. Get Toby Young & The Delingpole’s onto the case maybe? It’s about time Johnson, and it’s hard to think of anyone more singularly ill equipped to deal with this situation, is put on notice that his day of reckoning will be coming.
I’m off for my 3rd walk of the day shortly and later, a completely unnecessary drive. That is what I call a proper contribution to the war effort and a lovely way to spend a Sunday. ‘Dig deep and disobey’ needs to be the new slogan. #digdeepanddisobey for the twitterati.
Well said.
*Defending their culture, their freedoms, their prosperity, their democracy.*
Good one. You could also characterise it as Christendom v Atheism in so far as Nazism/Fascism represents worship of power for its own sake, where the mighty leader takes the place of God, the wholesale rejection of the Christian principle of all human lives being of equal worth, institutionalised as rule of law or liberal democracy.
But who’s the enemy now? There’s been a lot of talk suggesting that the virus is a Chinese bio-weapon, but as far as I know it’s not substantiated by any facts.
The explanation offered by Dr Wodarg that a new virus was discovered and various interests took advantage engendering mass panic unwarranted by the virus itself, seems plausible. Professor Michel Chussodovsky claims that some scientists are even making alarmist claims to the media which contradict their own published academic papers.
But the lockdown itself is no less politically engineered than ‘climate’ alarmism or even demographic change / mass migration, to name two other causes around which identical interests have coalesced against the loyalties of ordinary Europeans, i.e. the genuine anti-Nazis. Which needn’t imply any “masterplan” or “conspiracy”.
To that extent CV-19 is *politically* akin to “carbon” and multiculturalism, mass marketed as Diversity / ‘anti-racism’. The political shape of each ’cause’ more or less identical. Perhaps CV-19 is more opportunistic than ‘climate’ or migration, otherwise the same trans-national interests are in alignment.
If Bill Gates / George Soros / Al Gore are more or less interchangeable, at least as figureheads of those causes, Gore wasn’t so much a cash sponsor as a publicist, it doesn’t follow that Bill Gates is in league with Boris or The Economist or Daily Mail (two of the most alarmist publications) in the case of CV-19 anymore than with Soros in respect of mass migration, or Al G re CO2.
That Boris called for an amnesty for illegal immigrants and defended bankers as Mayor of London, and that the chairman of Goldman Sachs was Head of UN Migration no more entails a conscious plan than the fact that Boris has also been strenuous in defence of the Green cause means he’s in cahoots with the Green fraudsters, or that his CV-19 alarmism means he’s in league with Bill Gates or Big Pharma, though I haven’t seen any rebuttal of reports that Imperial College, as well as his scientific advisors, are in receipt of funding from Bill Gates.
People don’t have to be actively conspiring or planning to represent a coalition of interests. One might conjecture that an atomised populace with no shared loyalties greater than to their TV soaps or football teams is as politically amenable to professional public sector classes / officaldom as to global capital.
Otherwise why do billionaires like Apple CEO Tim Cook, to name another, sponsor the same Marxist causes as the mass media, ownership of which is concentrated among a tiny number of plutocrats, which happen to be in political lockstep with officialdom?
Good points, Sean. The sad thing about the Post WWII era is that “fascism” lost the war but seems to be winning the peace. “Fascism” defined as a political/economic system where private ownership is allowed but is subservient in an incestuous relationship with the Political Class.
Think about it! In the West, we have seen Government become more & more deeply involved in everyday life, with politicians deciding who gets what and which businesses thrive. At the same time, in China, there has been an explosion of nominally private industry, but deeply tied to government. The West and Communism are converging on the Fascist economic model.
This convergence may not be an evil scheme of the Davoise for world dominance — simply a natural outcome of a system in which government & politics bursts through its containing banks and floods over all society.
The best way to look after yourself if you have bad symptoms from any virus is to stop work, get lots of rest and drink plenty of fluids – like the NHS says:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/what-to-do-if-you-or-someone-you-live-with-has-coronavirus-symptoms/how-to-treat-coronavirus-symptoms-at-home/
Boris didn’t get lots of rest when he got ill with Covid-19. Although he self isolated he carried on working, didn’t get better and ended up in hospital.
Have healthy, asymptomatic people been kept locked down for so long because Boris didn’t follow NHS advice, has been unduly scared by what happened to him as a consequence and has apparently scared some of the population as well?
The WW2 spirit, as embodied by Churchill, is about individual courage and service to the country. Whereas the spirit of Covid-19, as embodied by Boris, is about subjecting the population to lockdown through his fear of a disease which his Government downgraded on 19th March (before lockdown) from a high consequence infectious disease on account of a low overall mortality rate.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid
I think what we have today is more akin to the progressive corporatism, as existed in the USA in the late 19th/ early 20th centuries – as opposed to fascism – which is really just another national socialism with the emphasis on ‘national’ and statism. The revolving door between politics and companies that become ‘too big to fail’ allow policy makers to ‘monetise’ their policies. Politicians, since the Clinton/ Blair, ‘third way’ resurrection of this political philosophy, now become immensely wealthy on retirement,
“It’s the almost religious worship of the NHS I can’t stand. ”
Has there ever been a health ‘service’ in the history of the world that required the population they ‘serve’ to submit to the ‘services’ every whim?
More like 80,000, or c100,000 pro rata to UK population today
I hope not!
I generally agree Gavin. I’d only question the use of ‘fascism’. If there’s a defining characteristic of the current dispensation in West it’s egalitarian, globalist, multiculturalist, whereas fascism as a political principle is anti-egalitarian, hierarchical, nationalist. For that reason Communism would be more apt than Fascism. Globalism / Cultural Marxism seem fitting enough labels.
Thanks for this, David. Says it all for me!
Way to go John!
Just watched a recording of BoJo’s speech tonight.
Overall the sight of him clenching fists etc and hearing the waffle out of his mouth was really disconnected.
But how can a supposedly intelligent man, and all those experts and ‘scientists’ be so wrong about his main message, the (mis)use of that overused term R. God help us if how he described them using R really happens. On some level I feel like I have dropped into an alternative universe , a Monty Python world determined by the new god, R. Help!
R is the new straw they have forced themselves to clutch at, in order to try and maintain face from the ridiculous corner they’ve backed themselves into.
Sean, we certainly don’t have good terms to describe what has developed in the world since WWII.
Communist China has billionaires (many of whom seem to be members of the Party), along with a stock market, toll roads, private schools, pay-for-service hospitals, and privately-owned housing — but only a very rudimentary social safety net.
The Capitalist West has very rich people (many of whom seem to deeply involved in politics), big companies which exist only because of government involvement (eg Airbus & Boeing) — and a social safety hammock.
There is a definite convergence. Marx would have difficulty reconciling today’s China with Communism, and Adam Smith would have difficulty reconciling today’s Western governments with market economies. We need a better vocabulary!
“I am prepared to risk my life to the same extent to preserve our country and way of life”.
Oh really? So (you claim) you’d take up arms for your country, yet draw the line at staying (mostly) indoors for a couple months to protect the more vulnerable in our society – because THAT would just be a bridge too far?!
Good grief.
Thanks David, lots of people your age saying the same sort of thing.
Period speak? I talk like this normally!
Good grief indeed Max. Are you really that dumb?
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