Do authoritarians deserve a chance to be treated with grace and forgiveness?  The question is circulating regularly these days in the wake of the complete failure of covid pandemic response and the victory of the anti-mandate movement.  The answer relies on a series of counter-questions based on logic and predictable outcomes.  It's the kind of discussion that covid cultists don't want to have; they just want everyone to forget because they now have something to lose politically  

Scott Galloway, Professor at the NYU Stern School of Business and member of the World Economic Forum's "Global Leaders Of Tomorrow" list, is one of the cultists that now wants to be given a free pass as he debates the issue on Real Time with Bill Maher.

"I was on the board of my kids' school during COVID. I wanted a harsher lockdown policy. In retrospect: I was wrong. The damage to kids of keeping them out of school longer was greater than the risk. But here's the bottom line: We were doing our best. But let's give a little… pic.twitter.com/8Vt2NujNKl

— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) October 28, 2023

The question that we need to ask Galloway is:  How forgiving was he when confronted with people who opposed his authoritarianism?  Galloway was rabidly pro-mandate.  He consistently called for harsher punishments for people refusing to comply and he demanded that the unvaccinated be treated as second tier citizens banned from places of business.  As he argued in his blog titled 'Half Of America Has Its Head Up Its Ass. It's Time For A Vaccine Mandate':

“Enough already. Federal law should require any citizen who wants to cash a government check, use public transport, or enter a place of business to show proof of vaccination...”

Galloway cited the ever present inflated CDC data on covid deaths in America as the justification for his authoritarian position.  Of course, data was available not long after the spread of covid indicating that the Infection Fatality Rate of the virus was a tiny 0.23% and that 99.8% of the population (including the unvaccinated) had nothing to fear.  Not only that, but the CDC has recently and quietly published information showing that around 95% of people who died with covid also had one or more comorbidities and 75% had at least four – Meaning, if you did not have multiple comorbidities your chances of dying from covid were incredibly small.   

Do Galloway and those like him deserve a clean slate?  No, they don't, and here's why...

No Apologies

We hear many covid authoritarians talk about forgiveness but very few of them actually apologize for their behavior.  Galloway calls for “grace”, perhaps trying to appeal to the Christian notion of “turning the other cheek.”  He admits he was wrong on the mandates (because the data forces him to), but he doesn't actually apologize for his behavior.  In fact, he excuses his behavior and the behavior of leftist politicians as them doing the best they could do given the imperfect information they had at the time.  This is a common tactic of misdirection.

As noted above, within months of covid becoming active in the US, the data was already available showing that the virus was not a legitimate threat.  So the claim that their information was "the best they had at the time" does not hold water.  There was more than enough evidence to warrant opposition to unconstitutional policies (frankly, even if covid had been more deadly it doesn't justify violations of the Bill of Rights).  Millions of Americans tried to explain the truth to those panicking over covid, and they chose not to listen, calling us “selfish conspiracy theorists.” 

But the greatest trespasses were among those analysts and "influencers" who used covid as an opportunity for political gain, knowing that there was information that debunked government and media spin.  The worst people are those that have no intention of making amends because they plan to try again.  People who do wrong and refuse to give a legitimate apology are the kinds of people that are likely to commit similar offenses in the future.   

Mad With Power

The covidians were primarily from the left side of the political spectrum and wherever leftists were most concentrated is where the most egregious violations of liberty took place.  The political left went absolutely mad with power, with a large number of Democrats supporting Orwellian controls to punish people refusing to submit to the mandates. 

There were calls to fine the unvaccinated, imprison people who question the vaccine, put the vaccinated on home lockdown and even take away their children.  In some states, like New York, there was active legislation put forward to create detention facilities for people that did not comply (covid camps).  That is some serious Stalinist behavior and we are still waiting for it to be addressed and for certain political leaders to be punished.  

As the old saying goes: "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power."  We have now seen the character of the political left.  We have seen the character of people like Galloway, and they have been found untrustworthy.

It Can And Will Happen Again

The covid event was really a litmus test for authoritarian tendencies in the US.  At least half the public failed that test miserably.  We may not see another pandemic agenda in our lifetimes, but that doesn't really matter.  There will be many other opportunities in the future for ignorant people and sociopathic people to act out on their darker impulses.  It is important to make a note of how the individuals around us behave when they think it's safe to be evil, and we must remember who they are.  These are not people that should be given “grace” or trust down the road when the next crisis strikes; they have shown themselves to be unworthy of that.

Authored by Jackson Richman, Eva Fu and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis warned on Oct. 27 that China is "the key player" behind the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel.

Appearing at an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation, a  conservative think tank in Washington, in conjunction with The Epoch Times, Mr. DeSantis struck a hawkish tone toward Beijing, calling it a “key player” behind the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza Strip.

"The CCP is keeping both Iran and Russia afloat financially," Mr. DeSantis said in his speech, using the acronym for the Chinese Communist Party. "China's purchasing massive amounts of Iranian oil on the black market, thereby enriching the mullahs and Russia is selling China gas and much, much more. And that is bolstering Russia's war machine."

Mr. DeSantis went on to say that the protracted conflict between Ukraine and Russia since February 2022 "will ultimately benefit China because it will distract America and it will deplete our already dwindling Western weapons and ammunition stockpiles."

And while the United States will support Israel in defending itself, he believes that China “like[s] the Hamas-Israel conflict.”

“Clearly the way the world has gone the last two years has benefits to China,” he said. “There’s no question.”

“The threat posed by the CCP requires our primary focus and attention right now. They are the first truly peer competitor that we have dealt with in our lifetimes."

The Biden administration has relaxed or failed to enforce sanctions on Iran, which has given drones to Russia and exports oil to China. Mr. DeSantis noted that Russia has been selling China gas and “much, much more.”

He blamed “bad decisions made by America's ruling class” for the economic leverage China now has over the U.S. economy, noting that the United States had given China most-favored-nation trading status and allowed Beijing to be part of the World Trade Organization.

"And China has grand ambitions. They seek to be the dominant power in the entire world and they are marshaling all their society to be able to achieve that objective," he said. "So this is a formidable threat and it requires a whole-of-society approach."

He warned that “a world that's dominated by CCP will see them export their authoritarian vision all across the world.”

“This will be a world marked by internet policing, artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and social credit scores. It will end up creating a global dystopia and this is a regime that you do not want to have control or influence over our society,” he said, comparing the China threat to the Soviet Union's effort to spread communism worldwide.

The death toll that the Chinese regime is responsible for over its 70 some years of ruling “may very well be the highest of any government in history and numbers in the 10s of millions,” and the regime’s coverup of the pandemic, he added, has “put the rest of the world in great peril.”

Mr. DeSantis pledged to reorient U.S. foreign policy to prioritize the Indo-Pacific region to defend U.S. national security. Deterring CCP aggression, he said, requires the United States to project strength, which he detailed as bolstering the U.S. military to deny Chinese ambitions toward Taiwan, unleashing “America's full economic potential,” ensuring U.S. technological dominance, and closing border loopholes.

The Florida governor has maintained a tough-on-China record during his tenure, including by restricting Chinese purchases of property in the state and banning the controversial Beijing-funded Confucius Institute program from school campuses. In September, he directed the Florida Department of Education to cut state funding for four schools, citing their “direct ties to the CCP” that he said "constitute an imminent threat to the health, safety, and welfare of these school’s students and the public."

During a Q&A with Mr. DeSantis, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and Epoch Times senior editor Jan Jekielek asked the governor if the issue of human rights should be tied to U.S. policy on trade with China.

"Traditionally, human rights have been linked to trade or trade has been linked to human rights," noted Mr. Jekielek, also the host of EpochTV's "American Thought Leaders."

"I think human rights is something that's good to stand for. What is the concrete interest? I do think it informs a concrete interest because this is one of the great weaknesses of the CCP," said Mr. DeSantis. "What they're trying to export around the world ultimately, is something that is going to suffocate human freedom. Their vision is a dystopian vision."

Mr. DeSantis' statements came hours before Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with President Joe Biden at the White House. The regime's top diplomat is in Washington for meetings with senior Biden administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. The administration has framed its relationship with the regime as one of "strategic competition" rather than directly adversarial.

Along with warning about China, other topics Mr. DeSantis highlighted in his major foreign policy speech include the latest Hamas-Israel conflict, which began on Oct. 7 and consisted of the biggest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and border security amid the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.

During his Q&A, Mr. DeSantis noted the trend of leftist governments in Latin America.

"We should have an updated version of the Monroe Doctrine for our own neighborhood in the 21st century," he said, referring to a late 19th-century principle that viewed attempts by Europe to intervene in the Americas as a potentially hostile act against the United States itself.

Mr. DeSantis emphasized the United States is now at “the decisive decade” to “arrest our country's decline” and tackle the challenge from China.

“At the end of the day, China has a lot of liabilities. They have a lot of weaknesses,” he said. “They want to maintain ironclad control over their population indefinitely,” but there are already cracks showing, and increasing, “because they are not doing what needs to be done for individuals to ultimately flourish.”