It was inevitable that sooner rather than later, small but powerful groups of domestic and global elites, would cynically take advantage of the crisis spawned by the coronavirus to sneak their wacky ideas into economic recovery strategies.
You would have thought that we all know how all got here in the first place. Or maybe we don’t. According to independent reports, a deadly flu-like virus broke out in December 2019 in Wuhan, China.
To combat rising infections, people were prevented by law to pursue their livelihoods. This marked the beginning of lockdowns as we now know them. We were asked to stay at home and unsurprisingly economic activities simply thundered to a debilitating halt.
Now out of the woodwork, emerge people who have always harboured dark and disturbing plans to usher in the prohibition of alcohol and tobacco. And alas, they saw their moment.
Before we could even get to grips with what was really happening, we woke up to the reality that the authorities here at home and South Africa for example, had decided that it was simply not enough to sit idle at home.
You also had to hand in your right to smoke or drink. Such decisions were driven largely by the fact these overlords took the view that smoking and drinking are bad habits. The issue for them is not necessarily whether drinking or smoking cause the coronavirus but to impinge on our rights.
Perhaps they could make a case for introducing strict controls to ensure that people drink in safe and decongested areas but the idea of smoking bans amounted to bureaucratic overreach. Using the coronavirus fearmongering, they think that the government knows better than people themselves as to how they should lead their lives.
To the contrary, proponents of individual liberty and personal freedom believe that once all has been said and done, the individual is responsible for their own lives. We believe that the government, irrespective of how noble its intentions maybe, cannot replace the innate astuteness of the individual. Therefore, even in the grip of the virus, we continue to steadfastly hold to the irrefutable dogma that more economic freedom and less government mean prosperity and happiness.
This is the basis upon which we reject attempts by those who think that there is something inherently faulty with the market driven system that we had before COVID. Enter the Davos men. For the uninitiated, the Davos men refers to a collection of global elites which congregates annually in the Swiss resort town of Davos under the auspices of the World Economic Forum to chat about the future of the global economy.
Ordinary people have of course not paid too much attention to their annual jamboree until last year when they started coining nice sounding but dangerous concepts such as Building Back Better and Great Reset. We are at an inflection point where a collection of government leaders and swathes of unelected leaders are now hell bent on imposing harmful ideas under the guise of Building Back better or Great Rest.
I mean who in his right mind can argue against the need to rebuild economies effectively? We all do until you note that the Davos people in what can only be an act of selfishness, are not talking about rebuilding as we know it. They have a completely different business model. Instead, they want to shackle the free market through excessive government regulation although this is the only system that has lifted millions out of poverty over the last century. They blame the free market for promoting inequality. This is a false narrative because if anything, it is the absence of free markets which has relegated many Third World countries to misery.
Oddly enough, the free market allowed many of the people who now make the annual Davos pilgrimage to make their fortunes. Now and without shame, they want to redo this system and thereby make it difficult for other people to enjoy this very system to lift themselves out of poverty
Now under the great reset, the globalists want to restrict the use of fossil fuels and that would certainly make electricity unfordable for millions of people including the poor. It is also unclear why economic recovery strategies now have to be premised of renewable energy and climate change. There is no relationship whatsoever between the pandemic and climate change. We have to push back against the so called Great Reset and instead strengthen the market economy to create opportunities for growth.
