From ZH
Be afraid, very afraid.
That appears to be the message from the Biden administration.
As they cede "control" over the populace's fear of COVID to the reality of a virus that doesn't spread outdoors, or on surfaces, or via mask-blocking droplets and are increasingly unable to 'scientifically' explain the political problem that non-restrictive states have not suffered measurably different outcomes from lockdown states; the timing of the latest fear-filled Department of Homeland Security's 'National Terrorism Advisory System' Bulletin is questionable at best.
DHS is warning that terrorists may attack as COVID restrictions ease across the US, citing social media platforms and online forums used by perpetrators to spread their violent rhetoric.
“Today’s terrorism-related threat landscape is more complex, more dynamic, and more diversified than it was several years ago. We know that providing timely and useful information to the public is critical as we all work together to secure the homeland. With the issuance of today’s NTAS Bulletin, we are advising the public to be vigilant about ongoing threats to the United States, including those posed by domestic terrorism, grievance-based violence, and those inspired or influenced by foreign terrorists and other malign foreign influences,” said Secretary Mayorkas.
“In this evolving threat environment, DHS is redoubling our efforts to detect and disrupt all forms of foreign and domestic terrorism and targeted violence, while safeguarding privacy protections, civil rights, and civil liberties.”
As a reminder, in February, Secretary Mayorkas designated combating domestic violent extremism as a National Priority Area for the first time.
As Robert Higgs wrote, fear, like every other “productive” resource, is subject to the laws of production. Thus, it cannot escape the law of diminishing marginal productivity: as successive doses of fear-mongering are added to the government’s “production” process, the incremental public clamor for governmental protection declines. The first time the government cries wolf, the public is frightened; the second time, less so; the third time, still less so. If the government plays the fear card too much, it overloads the public’s sensibilities, and eventually people discount almost entirely the government’s attempts to frighten them further.
So it's time to change the tune from 'fear' of a biological virus to fear of a much more insidious belief-based virus (belief in anything but the establishment narrative of anything).
By keeping the population in a state of artificially heightened apprehension, the government-cum-media prepares the ground for planting specific measures of taxation, regulation, surveillance, reporting, and other invasions of the people’s wealth, privacy, and freedoms. Left alone for a while, relieved of this ceaseless bombardment of warnings, people would soon come to understand that hardly any of the announced threats has any substance and that they can manage their own affairs quite well without the security-related regimentation and tax-extortion the government seeks to justify.
