Government enforced vaccination – is it a good idea? This article discusses the recent government policies designed to tackle covid, such as vaccine mandates and the associated threats to livelihood and denying of freedom.

You may ask about the mandates:

“Is it really forced? Is it coerced?”

It depends how you define things. For me forced means the consequences of not conforming are harsh enough that you will conform even with serious objections about doing it. The consequences don’t have to be fines or jail time. Indirectly, the consequences we’re seeing are just like fines and jail time:

• Threatening your livelihood is a severe consequence. It’s like an ongoing fine the size of your entire income.
• Denying your freedom is a severe consequence. It’s like being in jail.

You will notice that most of the content of this article has nothing to do with vaccines. Most of the content has nothing to do with medical advice related to vaccines. 

Your position on vaccines is largely irrelevant.

This article is mainly about politics, unintended consequences and the potential for a cure to be worse than the disease.

The Road to Tyranny Starts Subtly

Totalitarian regimes, who rule with cruelty and tyranny, don’t manifest overnight. They evolve slowly, incrementally. Increments are kept small enough so that they seem innocuous and tolerable. This pattern can grow indefinitely, with the government’s creeping power and control forever trending upwards. Even if the current government has good intentions with their continually increasing power, at some point in the future someone with bad intentions will inherit that power and abuse it.

When looking at the road that has led to past tyrannical regimes a common thread can be identified:

Systems go wildly out of control when people don’t stop them when they’re going mildly out of control.

It’s important to recognise a mildly out of control system and act before it’s too late. It’s extremely difficult to recover lost freedom when you’ve become weak and oppressed and there’s a gun to your head. Action needs to be taken before that point. It’s dangerously easy to do nothing, to say that in isolation this incremental change in policy is tolerable, and to just go with the flow.

A common characteristic of tyrannical regimes is the use of fear to convince people to do things they don’t want to do, with justification being something like “it’s for your own good”. This is exactly what we’re seeing with governments today. Apart from the loss of freedom, such a strategy implicitly suggests that the government thinks it knows better than the people they represent, or believes the people are too stupid to understand so force must be used. Resentment, suspicion and lack of trust quickly follows.

Another characteristic of tyrannical regimes is suppression of information and control of speech. This is precisely what we are observing today, with mainstream media supporting the government’s policies, the censoring of information critical of the government’s policies on news, social media and online platforms, and with new rules controlling what doctors can and can’t say and what treatments they can and can’t use.

Another characteristic of tyrannical regimes is the government’s belief that they are so virtuous and god-like that, in the name of achieving their grand vision, they can decide that it is acceptable to sacrifice certain people. This is the case with current governments, for example deciding that small businesses can be crippled or that vaccine injuries are acceptable in people who did not want the vaccine. 

A competent leader’s job is to listen, to aggregate data from the bottom up, to articulate the voice of the people he or she leads and to form policies based on that process. Government leaders are representatives of the people and should talk to the people they represent. Leaders should ask the people they lead what their problems are, then develop appropriate policies to tackle those problems. Leaders within totalitarian governments behave differently. They develop policies from the top down. They dismiss or demonise the voice of the people if their voice is not aligned with the government’s policies. They dictate to us what our problems are and then announce the authoritarian policies that must be enacted to counter those problems whilst prosecuting anyone who disagrees. This is the behaviour of current governments.

Where does forced medical treatment stop? These sorts of policies could easily escalate to much more ethically questionable medical treatments forced onto civilians and disproportionately severe punishments to those who disagree with the government’s policy, including torture and murder. It may seem like a far stretch but the process starts exactly in the way that we are observing today, with small increments accumulating over decades.

Who will be responsible for deciding when to use the government’s new powers of forced medical treatment and discrimination based on medical status? Those people that you would least want to be responsible. Most people in government positions will understand the intent of the law and not abuse it, focusing instead on whatever they believe to be productive, attempting to do what’s right. Corrupt, power mad tyrants will gravitate towards these sorts of policies so they can make an ethical case to exercise their power.

Encourages Ineffective Governments

Any idiot with power can close borders or create new laws to ban people from doing certain things or use threats to enforce control. We need to stop calling these “tough decisions” and instead call them “dumb decisions”. Such binary decisions can be made with a coin, by flipping it. It’s the dumbest way of addressing problems. It takes competence and effort to simultaneously allow people their freedom whilst addressing society’s problems. Outcomes are far superior when people are intrinsically motivated to follow the direction provided by the government. Leadership should appeal to reason and an individual’s responsibility rather than the use of force. This is true in government and in business. In general the following can be asserted:

A leader who must use force is a failed leader

If a significant proportion of people aren’t intrinsically motivated to follow the direction of a leader and force must be applied for them to conform, then that’s a massive red flag indicating that perhaps the leader has got it wrong. In fact that is exactly how good leaders check their work. Leaders aren’t perfect. Leaders aren’t smarter than everyone they lead. Leaders can get it wrong. Leaders listen. Using force isn’t being a leader, it’s being a dictator. Dictatorships usually lead to dark places.

Given the option, governments will always resort to force to solve problems because it’s so easy to do. They’ve become so stiflingly ineffective that they are unable to attempt anything else. If we allow governments to make these dumb decisions, it gives them permission to continue to be ineffective and it sets a precedent for them to perpetually solve problems using this method. Anything that attracts any risk or potential to cause problems will be banned. Eventually everything will be banned because you can’t enjoy life with zero risk.

Here’s some things a competent government could have been doing over the last few years instead of forcefully controlling its citizens:

• Increasing the surge capacity of the health system. Even without covid there have been reports of health systems at breaking point or excessive waiting times at hospital emergency or doctors and nurses stressed to their limits. The health system has become bloated and expensive, overrun with unproductive bureaucracy whilst at the same time having the productive people whittled down to the bare minimum. The current system can barely meet the requirements of average demand and falls apart during periods of high demand. Improving it can be done at low cost – simply shift resources from the bloat of unproductive bureaucracy to productive people and more hospital beds / intensive care units. This means that, during periods of low demand, the doctors and nurses and hospital beds will be underutilised. This burns at the ego of power hungry middle managers and government bureaucrats but the benefit is a health system that can cope with surges and accommodate covid victims rather than one that can barely manage the average load.
• Funding research into treatment options rather than relying on mass vaccinations as the silver bullet. Out of patent drugs, repurposed drugs, vitamins and lifestyle factors are generally not given adequate research funding by private companies because there isn’t much money to be made. A proactive government could help fill that gap.
• Creating a health system that focuses on solving root causes of health problems, rather than the current system of treating symptoms through administering of drugs. This would create a population that is more resilient against pandemics.
• Encouraging healthy people. The covid risk is massively diminished for people with a healthy weight, who exercise regularly, who eat a healthy diet, who get enough sleep, who don’t smoke or drink too much and who don’t have diabetes. This needs to be popularised as a method of protecting yourself and your community against all disease including covid.
• Behave like a democratic government. Despite the fact that there is no direct pathway from medical science to government policies, current governments are passing responsibility onto health experts to make decisions rather than actually developing policies. Science does not inform government of the voice of the people that they are representing. Science does not inform government of the values of the people they are representing. A competent government would take responsibility for its policies. It would focus on listening as a way to develop policies. It would take a balanced approached with appropriate input from health experts, mental health experts, education, universities, economic interests, small business, large corporations, young people, early childhood experts, the elderly, hospitality, entertainment, tourism and whoever else the problems and potential solutions would impact. It would encourage open dialogue and debate whilst acknowledging that every solution to a problem is a compromise. An appropriate solution is one that attempts to find the right balance between competing factors. The government would develop such a strategy that it holds itself responsible for and puts forth as a representative of its citizens. This is actually the job of a government, which the government has not been doing.

The items listed above are more difficult to do when compared to coin flip dumbass decisions like shutting down borders and mandatory vaccinations and creating division. This is why incompetent governments shy away from their actual job and instead prefer to use brute force and authority whilst hiding behind external advice. We should not encourage this type of government.

It’s Bad for Business

Generally speaking, on time frames of sufficient length, less government control is better for business. However the leadership of large western corporations struggle to see past their 3 month reporting period. They’ll support increasing government control because, in the short term at least, they see it as increasing the likelihood of banking next quarter’s KPI bonus. They’re also generally too weak and scared to make a stand even if they disagree with the government.

What would a 20 year or longer view look like? Business leaders would be interested in less government control to foster objectives such as:

• Ensuring the economy remains free and market orientated.
• Ensuring competitive market forces remain strong and without barriers.
• Ensuring the government doesn’t acquire so much power that it may steal profits from companies through corrupt legislation and unjust taxes.
• Ensuring a culture where people are happy to say something if they have a concern, which can help flag inefficiencies and prevent major problems and the associated costs.
• Ensuring people don’t feel forced in the way they operate at work. People who feel forced become disengaged with their work. They’re demotivated, don’t take responsibility for what they’re doing and operate at a level just enough to stay under the radar. This is bad for productivity and stifles innovation.
• Ensuring civil war does not emerge. Civil war is terrible for business (except perhaps the military industrial complex).

Distrust

If insufficient numbers of the public have been convinced to get vaccinated then that’s a failure of the government to make its arguments credible enough. Then to make vaccines mandatory and use the force of the law to punish those who refuse it is going to increase the lack of trust that is driving the inadequate vaccination rates to begin with. Since the government has abdicated its responsibilities to so called health experts (who are too narrowly focused to form appropriate policy), this distrust is likely to spill over to health and science. And since it’s the police that are tasked with enforcing the government’s agenda (rather than performing their actual job of protecting citizens), distrust will also rise towards the police force. Conspiracy theories will gain in popularity.

How well is a society going to fair when the public distrusts its government, the health system, science and the police? It’s not hard to image it degenerating into anarchy or civil war.

Fosters Identity Politics

Through its legislation and communication, the government is giving people an easy target to label as the enemy – those who are not vaccinated. People who are genuinely concerned about forced medical treatment or vaccine side effects may say nothing because they are afraid of being labelled the enemy. People will no longer attempt to take balanced positions on issues as they instead attempt to maintain allegiance to their side. This stifles meaningful dialogue. Rational discussion can’t occur. It replaces problem solving with fighting. Fighting has the potential to escalate uncontrollably.

Identity politics also gives governments a scapegoat for their incompetence. It’s standard protocol for ineffective tyrannical regimes – divide the people, specify one side as the enemy, encourage hatred towards the enemy, place all blame on the enemy and apply forever escalating levels of prosecution against them.

Unintended Consequences

There are many unintended consequences of the government’s authoritarian policies, too numerous to warrant separate sections in this article. Some include:

• Rising rates of depression, anxiety and mental health issues.
• Increased use of anti-depression medication.
• Increased suicide rates. This includes more children and young people killing themselves.
• High rates of vaccines injuries caused by using experimental vaccines, and over using them on healthy people who had almost no benefit from being vaccinated.
• Severe impact to businesses in certain sectors and especially small businesses.
• Financial destruction of individuals who have poured their lifetime into a severely impacted business.
• Cumulative cost to the greater economy through loss of business.
• Debt accumulation of governments paying for recurring mass vaccinations and propping up of an economy that has been crippled through its own policies.
• Spending of our children’s public money to compensate for current government policy.
• Future debt burdened governments unable to appropriately invest in health, education and infrastructure.
• Rampant inflation caused by excessive government spending as they compensate for their own destructive policies.
• Suffering and premature death of people who have experienced delayed scanning or treatment of critical diseases like cancer.
• Emotional and quality of life impact of not being able to see loved ones, visit dying relatives, attend funerals, celebrate weddings.
• Emotional and quality of life impact to residents locked out of their own state or country and not able to return home.
• Disadvantage to children and young people going through formative stages of their development under oppressive restrictions.
• Increased child abuse due to children spending more time in abusive households and less time in places where abuse can be identified and corrected.
• Collusion between government and media so that the media supports the government’s agenda. This makes it easy for future governments to get away with unethical policies.
• Normalising the requesting and providing of private medical details.
• Teaching young people (working in cafes, pubs and other businesses that are enforcing mandates) that it is ok to discriminate others based on their medical status. These our are future government leaders, business leaders and police officers.

Are these factors being appropriately addressed in the government policy? Has there been sufficient debate around them? All I see is a continual stream of authoritative announcements. That’s ok for people in the government, with their secure jobs, growing power and generous income that keeps rolling in every week. What about everyone else?

Many of these negative impacts will manifest in the future and continue to grow. We’re reducing the immediate risk of covid (mainly for old sick people) at the expense of increasing the future risk to our children. Has there been adequate conversation to ensure we have that balance right?

The Vaccines are Experimental

The covid vaccines are not approved for use, except under the emergency exemption. This is because the vaccines are experimental. Governments have given pharmaceutical companies indemnity against vaccine harm because the vaccines are experimental.

Vaccines usually take 10 to 15 years to develop. The covid vaccines were developed much quicker. The long term health effects are not known. The long term interactions between the vaccines and an evolving virus are not known. Given the unknowns, people should be free to make their own judgement about vaccines based on their own unique risk profiles.

Additionally, vaccine benefits are marginal for fit, young, healthy people. Why is the government forcing experimental vaccines onto people who would have almost zero benefit from being vaccinated? Vaccines do not stop transmission so there is no social benefit. Where is the risk benefit analysis at the individual level? Where is the study to indicate that quality-adjusted life years is improved sufficiently by the vaccine in fit, young, healthy people to warrant not only its use but the enforcement of its use?

A major pandemic in the modern era, combined with these experimental vaccines, presents a situation to humanity that has never been encountered before. In these circumstances I don’t think it’s ethical for a government to pretend to be so sure of its opinion on the right pathway to safety that it can assert the right to force it onto others.

If there’s misinformation, the government should address it (with facts, not with censorship and propaganda). People should have the vaccine because they think, on the balance of risks and rewards, it’s good for their health and their community’s health, rather than because they are forced to. A government’s failure to appropriately convince the population about the merits of a vaccine should not be compensated for by brute authoritarian force.

At an individual level, you should not be recommending people to get an experimental vaccine. What if they suffer from a vaccine injury? What if it turns out that these vaccines have terrible long term consequences? Keep your conscience clear.

What should you do?

If you’re worried about the government’s escalating oppression and power, then you should talk about it. Discuss it with your work colleagues. Raise it with your boss. Discuss it with your friends and family. Raise it with your local government representative. Talk to the media. This has nothing to do with whether you have been vaccinated and what your opinions are of the risks and rewards of vaccinations. Whatever your vaccination position, if you are worried about our failing democracy or authoritarian governments or deteriorating freedom or the precedent that forced medical treatment is setting or any of the other issues identified above, then you should say something. You have an ethical obligation to say something. Ensure your conscience remains clear in case our freedoms continue to deteriorate. You don’t want to be contributing to a future tyrannical government and all the suffering and death that accompanies such a regime.

You don’t need to say something that will risk your job or risk prosecution. You don’t need to make threats. You don’t need to make demands. Saying something could be as simple as something like:

• I think people should decide for themselves to get vaccinated because they think it’s a good idea rather than be forced to, especially when the vaccine doesn’t stop transmission. What do you think?
• I think travel restrictions and government mandates are not good reasons to receive medical treatment.
• I’m worried about the freedom and quality of life of future generations.
• Vaccinations are great, we’re so lucky we have this technology, but I think the government has gone too far by mandating vaccinations and denying people their freedom.
• Forced medical treatment is a dangerous precedent to be setting. I’m worried about where that may lead.
• I think the risk from ever increasing government control is far greater than the risk presented by covid.
• I think the government has failed us in managing the health system appropriately during the pandemic and so I am hesitant about supporting their authoritarian policies. I’d rather fix the hospitals.
• I have an ethical objection to supporting Nazi style government tactics like fear, division, scapegoating and prosecution.

It’s worrying that, when talking to people individually, I’ve found the number of people who don’t agree with government enforced medical treatment is much higher than the number of people actually saying something about it. This is concerning not just for spiralling government tyranny but also for corporate culture and safety. People are ok with doing something they don’t think is right. This can lead to both genocidal regimes and corporate disasters. People have and continue to die in workplace related accidents triggered by shortcuts, budget cuts, inadequate design, unrealistic schedules, unrealistic cost forecasts, unethical decisions, poor direction from management and excessive greed. Many such disasters could have been prevented if the people involved raised their concerns.

If you feel something isn’t right, you should say something.

If you’re already vaccinated but you are concerned about enforced medical treatment then you should still say something. In fact you should be more inclined to say something since the threat to your livelihood and freedom is much less. You can keep your conscience clear with minimal risk.

If there is some deadline date within the corporation you work for, and you can afford not to work for a while or find it easy to get a new job, then I’d suggest not showing up for work on the deadline date. This doesn’t mean you are exiting the system, never to work again, destined to be financially crippled. You don’t need to burn your bridges. Take a breather, have some time to assess the situation, take some long service leave or annual leave, go fishing, hang out with the kids for a while, get some house renos done, wait for more information on the vaccines, throw a spanner in the government’s ever increasing appetite for power. You can always take the vaccine sometime in the future, on your own terms. You can always resume working sometime in the future.

If you think having the vaccine is a good idea for health reasons but you are more concerned about our deteriorating freedom, then I’d suggest not getting the vaccine. Protest against the government’s tyranny by sacrificing your personal health. It’s a risk worth taking. Use it as an opportunity to improve other aspects of your health so you are naturally resistant to covid. Once our freedom is secured you can resume normal ethical practices: get the vaccine if you think, based on your own unique risk profile, the vaccine is worth getting.

If you feel the government is ineffective and resorts too quickly to dumbass authoritarian decisions like border closures and mandatory vaccinations, then I’d suggest voting for a different government at the next election.

If you are required to check people’s medical records like a Nazi as part of your job, I’d suggest refusing to do it.  Protest to your boss, find another job.

If you can, get involved with protests. Protests rely on large quantities of people to make an impact. Don’t sit on the sidelines. Keep your conscience clear. Help prevent a future genocide.

If you work within law enforcement then I’d encourage you to not enforce anything you believe to be unethical. Don’t blindly follow the government’s agenda. Governments can get it wrong. You are the last line of defence against an out of control government. Keep the civilians safe. Keep your conscience clear. You don’t want to be enforcing the government’s scapegoating onto innocent people. You don’t want to be contributing to the future slaughtering of civilians by the police force.

If you have the resources to take on the government legally then let’s do it! If our civil liberties aren’t sufficiently protected and the government’s oppression is legal then we need to look at changing the law.

If you feel this article may be useful in reducing the likelihood of future oppression, then share it.

Do Nothing?

What if you’re worried about our deteriorating freedom, but you’re inclined to do nothing? Doing nothing is an attractive option. Firstly it’s easy, there is no effort involved. Secondly it can seem that doing nothing is the least risk option. Doing stuff is generally more risky than not doing stuff, right? And you don’t want to invite trouble into your life.

So you’re interested in minimising risk. To properly decide on the least risky option, you need to think about and clearly articulate to yourself:

What are the risks of doing nothing?

Is it tyranny? Genocide? Civil war? What are the risks to your children, and your children’s children? How will doing nothing impact your conscience?

To quote a wise professor:

“When you have something to say, silence is a lie.”

Do you like lying? Will you have a constant feeling of stress and anxiety because you’ve lied? How will you view yourself if, instead of speaking your truth, you’ve buckled to government and corporate pressure? How will you feel if you’ve lost self respect? Will you feel like you’ve let down your kids? How will you feel if, at the hands of your inaction, your kids inherit an oppressive world where people who disagree with unjust government policies are prosecuted, tortured or killed?

If you don’t speak your truth what are you? A puppet! Is being a puppet a recipe for living a meaningful life? What is the purpose of your existence if you’re a puppet repeating someone else’s ideas and agenda? If you suppress your own truth what is the relevance of you as an individual? Are you risking a meaningless life? That’s a massive risk!

If you take action it could lead to some trouble. If you do nothing, then, although delayed, you could be in a lot more trouble.

What are the risks if everyone decides to do nothing?

You are fighting against a natural tendency to procrastinate and a bias towards assuming doing nothing is less risky than doing something. Make a conscious effort to map out the risks so you can make the right decision.

What If You Support Mandatory Vaccinations?

I’ve decided that government enforced medical treatment is where I draw the line but I’m not right. It is acceptable to feel that mandatory vaccinations are a reasonable thing to do during a pandemic. There is no objective way to draw the line. Finding the line involves constant dialogue, constant contemplation, constant compromise, constant searching for the appropriate middle ground. You should consider where you would draw the line so that you are ready to take action should the government continue on its trend towards tyrannical control.

For example, you may decide that forcing the vaccine onto children (or young adults) is where you would draw the line. In Australia there have been exactly zero covid deaths in children aged from 0 to 9 and one death in children aged 10 to 18. The long term side effects of this vaccine are not known yet governments are encouraging children to take the vaccine when they have practically zero benefit of taking it. They are also forcing healthy young adults into taking the vaccine through workplace mandates and other deprivations of freedom despite it being of almost zero benefit to them.

Another example that you may consider to be crossing the line is if ongoing booster shots are encouraged. You may have been convinced to get the vaccine based on the government’s promise that the vaccine is effective and that they will grant you your freedom once fully vaccinated with two doses. If that turns out to be false then how can you trust the government going forward? Not only would the government have lied about the arguments used to convince you to get the vaccine (such as its efficacy) and so should not be trusted, you will also be exposed to accumulating vaccine risk. The spike protein that the vaccine stimulates production of in your body is toxic and can cause organ damage including heart damage (myocarditis) and death. Most healthy people can fully recover from the spike protein damage caused by the initial vaccinations. However continual long term exposure to the spike protein may increase the risk of permanent harm.

Another example that you may consider to be crossing the line is if the government lied about assuring your freedom once a specified target vaccination rate was reached. If, after reaching that target, restrictions were still being applied, then the government lied to you and shouldn’t be trusted. It’s possible the government shifted the goal posts (a common sign of poor leadership) by choosing an even higher vaccination rate, and yet again lied about granting freedom once the even higher vaccination rate was attained. Repeated lies and forever escalating vaccine mandates might be a signal that the government is out of control and action needs to be taken.

If you know where you stand then you’re more likely to notice the incremental change that goes too far and less likely to allow incremental changes to accumulate into a totalitarian regime. You should also ask the organisations you work for where they would draw the line so you can hold them accountable to it.

What are the risks of Tyranny?

It’s obvious that being trapped within a tyrannical regime is not fun and may be accompanied by oppression, unjust prosecution, suffering and torture. However these things are hard to measure. Deaths are easier to measure. Well somewhat easier, some estimates vary considerably because it’s difficult to know exactly how many deaths occurred in combat, how many deaths there were in prisoner of war camps, how many civilians were slaughtered and how many civilians died indirectly through famine and living conditions. Here’s a table identifying number of deaths due to various causes:

From this data we can conclude:

Governments are more deadly than covid

Further, we can conclude:

Mental health issues are more deadly than covid

Note that deadly governments and suicide disproportionately kill young healthy people. Covid mainly impacts old sick people.

The covid deaths statistics are questionable. It’s difficult to determine the cause of death of an old and sick person who contracts covid. If the default answer is covid then the statistics are over-estimating the number of deaths. The question of whether someone died from covid or died with covid may not be appropriately addressed. Australian Bureau of Statistics data suggests 91% of reported deaths had comorbidities. This figure may not accurately capture obesity and poor lifestyle factors which would push that percentage even higher.

If we had statistics to indicate healthy life-years lost, covid would appear far less deadly. I’d guess a healthy life-years lost of close to zero would apply to many people who have been recorded as dying from covid.

The number of recorded covid cases is a massive underestimate. Many people and most children are asymptomatic and would not get tested, or would avoid testing to prevent giving tyrannical leaders more reasons to apply escalating tyranny. So the case fatality rate from covid is even less than what the statistics indicate.

Another interesting point is that covid is spread throughout the world whilst totalitarian regimes are limited in geographical location. We can easily see that tyrannical governments have caused far greater deaths than the world total covid deaths, but when assessed within a particular location, governments are monumentally more deadly than covid. For example, in Germany, the government killed about 10% of the population over a few years through WW2, whereas covid has killed a bit over 0.1% of the population. That’s nearly two orders of magnitude difference. And many of the deaths in WW2 were healthy young men, woman and children. Covid mainly targets the old and sick. Imagine if we compared healthy life-years lost, the difference would probably grow by another factor of 10!

We are not immune to the processes that lead to Stalinist Russia or Mao’s China or Nazi Germany. In fact we are seeing characteristics within our government and culture that were common in those totalitarian regimes. All governments are at risk of this process at all times. It requires constant and ongoing attention to keep in check. The consequences of not keeping it in check, although delayed, are far worse than allowing it to proceed in the name of a perceived short term benefit.

With decades of prosperity and relative peace, perhaps the most important reasons for freedom have been forgotten. Perhaps we’ve forgotten about the soldiers who have died in previous wars so that we’d be free from having to show our papers. Freedom is not just a right or value. Freedom is not just a nice-to-have luxury that allows people to have their own way. Freedom is for keeping governments serving their people. Freedom is for keeping democracies working properly. Freedom is for allowing people with differing views to find compromise or common ground. Freedom is the mechanism by which division can be defeated and consensus can be reached. Freedom is for preventing power from becoming too concentrated. Freedom is for reining in power-mad leaders. Freedom is for preventing tyranny. Freedom is for correcting corrupt hierarchies. Freedom is for allowing people to speak the truth. Freedom is for giving the people at the bottom a voice. Freedom is for preventing the suffering, torture and murder of millions of people.

Freedom matters. Governments should be our servants, not our tyrants.