Pro Freedom, Anti Lockdown Speech Sep 2020 - transcript

My name is Richard G. Brooke and I am the creator of the Capitalist Party.

I began writing this on September 11th, a day in 2001 when Western culture was attacked from without. Now it is 2020 and we are under attack again, but this time from within, by our own government. I am looking at you Boris Johnson.

At you Chris Whitty.

At you Cressida Dick.

At you BBC News, who claim to offer a public service.

Shame on you for the fear and panic you have engendered in this country when it is your job to lead with confidence and hope. And shame on you for sacrificing our most basic freedoms without a hint of remorse.

How did we end up with such people in charge? I’m sorry to say that when you voted in most elections over the last 70 years you voted to be controlled, and these kinds of people like to control you.

You voted away control of your health, your education, your income, your savings and your businesses to the state. It should come as no surprise that they now control access to your loved ones. It is clearly time to say enough.

But which public figures are doing so. Where are the non-government figures who should be demanding our freedoms back?

I’m waiting for you, Archbishop of Canterbury.

For you, religious leaders.

For you socialists.

For you humanists.

For you scientists.

There have been notable exceptions, but on the whole these groups have stayed silent? Virtually none have come forward to defend freedom. When the lockdowns came. Nothing. When the masks came, nothing. When the £10,000 fine for political protests came, nothing. Why? Neither Left nor Right nor Centre has raised the slightest opposition.

I can tell you the answer. It is the one thing they have in common, the one powerful idea to which they all submit allegiance: altruism.

This will surprise you. You think altruism is about helping people, the poor, the sick, the needy. Well think again. The definition of altruism and the meaning it is given, is to sacrifice one value for another, not to help people.

The politicians tell us to sacrifice our freedom to save the NHS. Has that helped the 2.2M people waiting for treatment?

They have told us to sacrifice our right to see our families. Has that helped elderly friends and relations living alone?

They have told us to sacrifice our right to liberty and stay locked up in our houses to stop the virus spreading. Has that helped the people who got the virus thanks to living in a confined space? Has it helped the mental health or increased the social bonds of people living in tightly packed accommodation?

They have told us to sacrifice our right to our own bodies by fining us if we don’t place masks over our mouths. Has that helped the infirm, retailers, or anyone to expel their body’s toxins, to trade or to smile at people?

They have told us to sacrifice our right to travel abroad and return to our normal lives. Has that helped the airlines, or the hotels, or the ships, or those separated from their families?

They have told us to operate our businesses whilst keeping up social distancing. Has that helped efficiency or created new jobs or trade?

They have told us to sacrifice our children’s education, their exam record and their right to see their schoolmates. Has that helped their growth into wise, sociable, happy adults?

And they have sacrificed our right to public protest by fining the organisers unless they abide by covid rules. Is that helping the cause of freedom and democracy?

No.

None of these sacrifices help people. They harm people. That is the deeper meaning of sacrifice: to give up one value for another you value less.

Does everyone in this country literally believe all those values are worth giving up in order to try and stop covid? Do they all believe that avoiding covid is that important compared with all those other values? If not what right does the government have to make that decision for them?

It does not have any such right. But it does have the morality of altruism to gain your obedience. Altruism is sacrificing your interests to others. According to altruism, anything is permissible as long as it’s for someone else. Whatever the damage, whatever the long-term consequences, if you do it for others you are doing good. That is what has been preached for centuries. That is what conservatives, socialists, religionists and humanists all believe. Now look at where that has got us. A seemingly benign government is imposing fascism one quick step at a time.

I say enough!

There has been enough sacrifice over the last hundred years, in wars, in genocides and in statist regimes to show that sacrifice does not equal doing good. That altruism does not lead to happiness.

But it is easy to criticise. What is the solution? What would it take to restore our freedom for good?

We need a new morality. A different set of principles guiding our lives instead of sacrifice. We need a new way for people to live peacefully in society. And we need a new form of government dedicated to allowing that morality to flourish.

There is such a morality and it is called rational self-interest. There is such a way to peacefully protect those interests in society - it is called individual rights. And there is a form of government that does nothing but secure those rights - it is called capitalism.

All these terms have been abused by their opponents and thereby hidden over the centuries. Reason has been called ineffective: “You didn’t make it’’, said Obama. Self-interest has been equated with caring nothing for others. Rights have been called “nonsense on stilts.” And capitalism has been violated by every government under the sun, taking its products but punishing its producers.

All these terms need to be resurrected, redefined and defended in the public square. Many writers have attempted to do so but none as eloquently or comprehensively as Ayn Rand. She experienced the Communist Russian Revolution first-hand. Then after escaping to America until her death in 1982 she wrote fiction and non-fiction from an original, rational perspective.

In Atlas Shrugged she showed what happens to a society that abandons reason.

In The Virtue of Selfishness she countered the prevailing ethics of altruism.

In Capitalism - the Unknown Ideal, she explained how capitalism, properly defined, is the only moral social system because it alone outlaws the initiation of physical force by anyone, including the government.

And she assisted in the writing of The Cause of Hitler’s Germany by Leonard Peikoff which identifies irrationality, altruism and socialism as the causes of World War Two.

But her defence of freedom is too radical for today’s elites. They are afraid that their system of control will collapse if her ideas become well known. Thus, her works are on the A-level politics syllabus but only because she is a woman. And her name is blacklisted by Oxford academics.

But if you read her books and defend the values of reason, self-interest, rights and capitalism then we can avoid the fate of Weimar Germany when it gave way to Nazism.

Make no mistake, benign as today’s Tory government seems, unintentional as its attacks on our freedom perhaps are, it acts on the principle of self-sacrifice and there is no limit to how much they will demand of you. It is a very short series of steps from stopping gatherings of seven people, to imprisoning those who do not comply, to banning discussion of anti-government orthodoxy to stopping elections, to denying passports to those who refuse a vaccine, to a full dictatorship.

All for your own good. All to save lives. Others’ lives. Never your own. All in the name of altruism. It will go on and on like this until reason and rights are recognised and liberty is properly protected.

You might think I exaggerate, but I ask you this: what will stop it? When will freedom be restored?

When there are zero covid cases in the world? What about false positives?

When everyone has been forced to take a vaccine? What about the next virus?

When people are so scared and the economy is so ruined that the number of suicides exceeds the number of covid deaths?

The government has set no limits, no definitions for reaching the end of these restrictions. It says it will ‘monitor the situation’. Which means taking arbitrary action at a moment’s notice. They say they have to act quickly to control the virus, but does that justify giving up freedom, rights and prosperity?

They would say yes - lives come first. Whose lives? Anyone’s, except yours. Such is the nature of altruism.

There are no limits on the government’s actions in this crisis except one - the Coronavirus Powers Act is shortly to be reviewed and voted on in Parliament.

Now is the time to protest, to write to your MP, to organise public meetings and to garner the power of social media, to ensure this malicious Act is stopped in its tracks. That is the first and essential step. Otherwise you will not be seeing your family this Christmas, you will not be meeting with groups of friends, you will not be enjoying pantomimes or Christmas fairs and you will be living under the constant threat of lockdown in 2021 and beyond.

The second step is to demand the creation of a law forbidding lockdowns. A law that cannot be overturned except by a referendum.

Thirdly you must demand an end to mandatory mask wearing and mandatory social distancing. The coronavirus is not Ebola. Most people are either unaffected by it or have only mild symptoms. Those who are vulnerable must take the best precautions they can. The rest of us must be free to get on with our lives.

We do not live in order to not spread covid nor to save the NHS. We live in order to enjoy our lives, to achieve our own happiness. Young people who socialise are currently being chastised for doing just that. Instead they should be encouraged. Not only is it their right but it will also protect the vulnerable through herd immunity.

Finally demand a general election in May. This government has proven itself a menace to British rights and liberties that took us centuries to obtain. It must be replaced.

Government, by its very nature, is a hindrance, not a help. It holds the legal monopoly on the use of force in a given geographical area. It should only use that force in retaliation against those who initiate force. It cannot and should not be expected to help people as such. Locking down a largely healthy, innocent population is not helping it. Helping people is not the government’s business unless they are victims of crime. True capitalism puts government back in its box.

If you wish to fight a seat on behalf of the Capitalist Party then I urge you to get in touch. The details are on the website.

I will leave you with this thought. “What good does it profit a man to have safety, yet forfeit his soul?”

If the price of being ‘safe’ from covid is police on the streets assaulting non-mask wearers and enforcing curfews with tasers as is currently happening in Australia and Columbia, then I reject such a deal.

I trust you will too.

- Richard G. Brooke