Doug Casey on How Covid Hysterics Turned Canada into East Germany

International Man: Canada has instituted some of the strictest and most aggressive Covid measures in the world.

We’ve seen stay-at-home orders, SWAT raids on non-compliant businesses, forced detention in government facilities for those suspected of having the virus, and many other totalitarian measures.

What’s your take on this?

Doug Casey: Frankly, I didn’t expect things would get quite this out of control.

Nobody could be sure what to make of Covid early in 2020, but it certainly got a lot more publicity than any previous flu. The original refrain was, “We just want to flatten the curve so that everybody doesn’t get it all at once.” That kind of made sense—for two weeks. But the hysteria has risen to a level where carts should go through the streets with the drivers calling, “Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!”

I’m not a conspiracy guy. I think it’s hard enough getting a few friends to agree on what movie to see and where to go to dinner. How much harder to get thousands of miscreants to collaborate on practically destroying the world economy? But the “pandemic” seemed orchestrated from the very beginning, with practically every country in the world locking down. Even though it was established early on—but rarely reported—that the sickness only attacked the old, the sick, and the obese.

It was very suspicious. The Hong Kong flu, the Asian flu, the swine flu, the bird flu, and various other viral infections came and went the way viruses do. They spread, took casualties, and disappeared. Inconvenient and unpleasant, but a part of life. Why and how did this illness in particular turn into such a hysteria, even though it only affected a small and easily isolated portion of the population? Even though it’s not even remotely comparable to the Spanish Flu of 1918–19.

I suspect it’s very rare to even meet somebody who knows an otherwise healthy person that has been seriously harmed by the Covid. I’ve met a number of people that have had Covid; it made them sick for a day or two or three; now, they’re as good as new. This is the way that it typically works with viral infections. The media loudly reports infections, but infections are meaningless if they’re asymptomatic or trivial.

It’s also strange that this infection is supposed to be easily transmissible. They said everybody would catch it. Unless they wore masks and isolate themselves, they’d die. But frankly, very few people—other than the elderly confined to nursing homes—seem to have gotten it, and the ones that do get it typically have a mild case. Frontline medical personnel certainly haven’t been decimated. It appears to be a grossly overblown hysteria generated by opportunists in the media and government.

My guess is that in the years to come Covid will be viewed as one of history’s greatest scandals. A big nothing was foisted upon society for no good reason or perhaps perpetrated for nefarious reasons. Canadians should be among the most embarrassed.

International Man: Certain Canadian politicians have engaged in an enormous power grab under the pretext of the Covid crisis. They’ve granted themselves all kinds of emergency powers.

What does this say about the nature of politicians?

Doug Casey: Who would have guessed that Canada, generally viewed as the kindest and gentlest of countries, would go even more insane than the US and almost as insane as Australia. Australia not only prohibits visitors, but it also doesn’t even allow people to leave the country. And they’re not planning on allowing people to leave the country for another year.

It’s almost as crazy in Canada. Anybody entering the country has to be quarantined in a government hotel for 10 days to two weeks at their own expense. Entering Canada apparently requires at least three separate expensive and inconvenient Covid tests, although the arbitrary rules are always changing.

I would expect nothing less of Justin Trudeau. He’s at once a classic beta male and a megalomaniac. He lacks the charm, but he has all the bad instincts of his father, Pierre Trudeau. The bad instincts make me wonder if the rumors about Fidel Castro being his actual sire are true.

The fact that Justin was elected says that the public actually wants rulers, and they prefer name-brand rulers. His only qualification for high office is that he’s from a political family. Despite the righteous blather about democracy we always hear, the fact is that the relative of a previous ruler almost always has the inside rail in a race for office. It’s true all over the world. People apparently like the idea of dynasties.

There are two types of people in the world: people who are interested in controlling physical reality—manipulating the material universe, which means creating things—and people who are interested in controlling other people. It’s inevitable that this type always goes into politics. They’re social engineers—basically, criminal personalities.

Unfortunately for those of us who value liberty, the average person likes being told what to do. It gives them a sense of certainty and order, however artificial. Types like Anthony Fauci, a lifelong obscure backbench bureaucrat, saw Covid as an opportunity to become rich and famous.

Now that the Covid scam has changed the nature of the world itself, it’s going to be very hard to evict these people from the positions of enhanced power in which they’ve put themselves.

That’s going to be as true in Canada as it is in the US, now that the Bolsheviks control Washington, D.C. They’ll do everything possible to cement themselves in power. And they’ll use that power promiscuously. For instance, when Joe Rogan made a reasonable and innocuous comment that young people needn’t rush to be inoculated, Biden and Fauci both jumped on him. But there are places even worse than Canada and the US. In Germany, questioning anything about Covid or the vaccines is risking being labeled as a dangerous extremist.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, a body with State powers, has officially threatened doctors with severe penalties if they “communicate anti-vaccine, anti-masking, anti-distancing, or anti-lockdown statements and/or promoting unsupported, “unproven” treatments for Covid-19. That’s insane and a violation of basic human rights as well as the principles of the scientific method.

International Man: The pushback against these measures has been negligible. A good portion of the Canadian population actually supports these—and harsher—measures.

What is the significance of this?

Doug Casey: Canadians have a well-deserved reputation for being nice and not as aggressive as Americans. It’s mostly cultural, of course, although there’s an argument for the genetic modification of humans over time, just as there is with, say, dogs and horses. It’s unlikely to be reflected in people only over the course of a couple of hundred years, of course.

But during the American Revolutionary War, many Americans fled to Canada because they feared change or were pacifistic, or they liked the king of England ruling things. They brought their conservative ideas with them. Perhaps the memes and the genes of American refugees from the Revolution insinuated themselves into the Canadian population over the last 250 years. Anything is possible over time. But don’t take any of what I just said seriously. With Ottawa’s current immigration policies, Canada will be a different place in a generation. There’s nothing wrong with Canada that 50 million Nigerian migrants can’t cure.

Frankly, I have a rather dim view of people in general, at least when they’re in a crowd. They sort themselves at the lowest common denominator. When they’re given orders, they generally do as they’re told. They act like whipped dogs; they’ll cower, they’ll roll over on their backs and wet themselves.

Canadians, perhaps for the reasons I just mentioned, are even worse than Americans, and the moral character of Americans themselves is certainly degenerating. On the other hand, it’s not wise to tempt fate by acting as a moral lightning rod. H.L. Mencken—who was the greatest journalist that the US has ever produced and one of its greatest intellectuals—was usually very outspoken and philosophically libertarian. But during World Wars I and II, he prudently dummied up.

He realized that during a major hysteria, whether it’s a war against the Germans—or a virus—people adopt an emotional “us versus them” attitude. Or an irrational “you’re either with us or against us.” It’s dangerous to stand out or offer reasons why you shouldn’t fight a war, whether against a real or imagined enemy.

International Man: What do you think happens next in Canada and other places ruled by Covid hysterics?

Doug Casey: The whole world is headed in the wrong direction from the point of view of personal liberty. It’s not just Canada.

Canada’s turning out to be one of the worst, but the whole world is adopting more government controls under the cover of health. After Covid is discredited though, an equally phony crisis will come to the fore—the global warming/climate emergency. The population has been prepped for three decades now. It could be even worse. Instead of just decimating humanity—which many of the hysterics would actually like—the hysterics like to say global warming could destroy the planet and kill Mother Earth herself. “It’s one thing after another, it’s always something,” as Gilda Radner’s Roseanne Rosannadanna used to say. All of it is underwritten by science. All of it inures more power to the State, which, coincidentally, funds almost all of the science today.

The science is likely to dictate forced vaccination next. Apart from the coercion, the problem is that these experimental vaccines are potentially dangerous. We may not know how dangerous they could be for several years. An incompetent media not only does no research but actively cancels scientists and physicians who mount arguments counter to those coming from the authorities. It’s impossible to know what to believe in such a highly politicized and intellectually dishonest atmosphere. The most widely promoted arguments are designed to promote the vaccine, which also seems odd. If you believe in the vaccine and get it, it shouldn’t really matter if anyone else does.

A bigger problem is that the public will get used to being controlled. So pandemicphobia isn’t going away anytime soon, especially after Covid 2.0 and Covid 3.0 appear.

International Man: How do you see all this affecting the natural resource industry in Canada? What are the investment implications?

Doug Casey: Partially out of fear and out of a desire to do what they’re told, a lot of people in Canada, just as in the US, are hesitating to go to work. That includes miners and oil roughnecks.

When they do go to work, they’re much less efficient because wearing a mask inhibits normal breathing—apart from the fact it’s of zero value in keeping out the virus. Having to distance also means that you can’t do things the way you did in “The Before Times.” Many mines were shut down at the height of the hysteria.

That was aggravated by the worldwide collapse of air travel. Like many people, I’ve developed a genuine case of flying hesitancy. Getting all your papers in order, then not knowing if the rules have changed, having to wear a mask under the watchful eye of Stewardess Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, then being served crappy gas station grub on a long flight, is unappealing. Incidentally, I don’t see how the airlines are going to make a comeback. Neither I nor hardly any other analyst or financier has been able to see a mine over the last year. That isn’t good for the resource business.

But here’s a thought. As the economy collapses in the Greater Depression, Covid will be assigned as the reason. As opposed to the business cycle, taxes, inflation, debt, and government regulation. So Covid may act as a great disguise. The government and the Deep State can shift the blame for the coming nastiness.

It’s rather clever.

Editor’s Note: The enormous and unprecedented effects of governments shutting down the global economy have only just begun.

The financial volatility in the weeks and months ahead promises to be extreme. The impact on your savings, retirement funds, and personal freedoms could be unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.

If you’re concerned about what could happen next and want to know how to survive and thrive with your wealth intact, then you need to see this newly released special report from NY Times bestselling author, Doug Casey and his team. Click here to download it now.