Detecting language using up to the first 30 seconds. Use `--language` to specify the language Detected language: English [00:00.720 --> 00:04.320] I'm Dave Champion. You're familiar with me coming before you in doing science-based [00:04.320 --> 00:07.680] presentations or talking about matters of law. Today I'm going to do something unusual [00:08.240 --> 00:15.040] in that this video is going to be basically 100% opinion. [00:22.720 --> 00:27.520] It seems to me if we go all the way back to the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, [00:28.400 --> 00:35.600] state governors had two options. Number one, they could use the money that they've since been [00:35.600 --> 00:41.760] spending on contact tracing and PCR testing and whatever all else they're doing. They could use [00:41.760 --> 00:49.040] that money. They could have put on a massive public education campaign concerning how people [00:49.040 --> 00:54.320] who are high risk could protect themselves from not just SARS-CoV-2 but essentially any virus. [00:54.320 --> 01:00.000] The protocols are pretty much the same. So that would have been the government serving in an [01:00.000 --> 01:07.120] educational or advisory status. The second option, this is the option that the governors chose, [01:07.760 --> 01:18.000] was to bring the hammer down. To become medical dictators. I want to share my experience and it's [01:18.000 --> 01:23.840] just that. It's my experience. Yours may be different on where we find ourselves now as [01:23.840 --> 01:29.520] I'm recording this on Christmas Eve day. I want to share with you some of the experiences that [01:29.520 --> 01:34.960] I've had when I've talked to various people in business because I think it raises the question [01:34.960 --> 01:43.920] of whether the draconian, tyrannical, oppressive approach is really the best. [01:48.400 --> 01:55.120] I've been in business a long time and consequently I find it very easy to have conversations with [01:55.120 --> 02:01.360] people in business at all levels. I can call up and speak to an executive at a company. We end up [02:01.360 --> 02:05.360] to the breeze having a great conversation for 45 minutes covering not only what the initial topic [02:05.360 --> 02:12.000] was but a lot of other fun interesting things. We can go down. We can say below the executive level. [02:12.000 --> 02:16.000] We've got managers. We've got administrators. We've got employees. We've got customer service [02:16.000 --> 02:22.240] people. We've got people on the sales floor if it's a retail staffer and I spend a lot of time [02:22.240 --> 02:27.840] cultivating those relationships. Number one, I enjoy people and number two, in the current context [02:27.840 --> 02:34.800] it has provided some insight. I want to share with you the insights that I have received based on [02:34.800 --> 02:40.800] my experience which again may be different than your experience. It seemed to me at the beginning [02:40.880 --> 02:48.720] of these lockdowns that a lot of things were taken very seriously because the government was [02:48.720 --> 02:52.640] threatening. Sometimes they were threatening the people directly. Almost universally they [02:52.640 --> 02:57.760] were threatening businesses that they were going to be fined or have their licenses taken away, [02:57.760 --> 03:05.840] suspended or revoked if they weren't obedient to one man called the governor. So there seemed to [03:05.840 --> 03:13.360] be a lot of intensity at first and I've noticed over time that intensity has waned considerably. [03:13.360 --> 03:17.840] So we've still got this framework of totalitarianism, medical totalitarianism [03:17.840 --> 03:23.440] or medically driven totalitarianism. It's not really medical. It's just there's a medical crisis [03:23.440 --> 03:30.800] so a bunch of things that are utterly worthless are being done by tyrants from the arrogance, [03:30.800 --> 03:35.920] the sanctimoniousness, the pretentiousness of believing that government can stop the spread [03:35.920 --> 03:43.120] of the virus. Over time the initial intensity has waned. In the last several months here's where [03:44.080 --> 03:50.160] in my conversations with people at all levels of business here's where I see things have come down [03:50.160 --> 03:59.600] to which is nobody cares. Most people I know they just want to get back to life as normal and I [03:59.600 --> 04:06.960] don't mean that they're like oh give me a vaccine so I can get back to normal. Their point of view [04:06.960 --> 04:14.080] is we're over it. All these things that's going on just stop. Now again your experience may be [04:14.080 --> 04:21.280] different but that's virtually everybody I know in my world. Also in businesses that I frequent [04:21.280 --> 04:28.000] the atmosphere has gone from that original many many months ago that intensity to like yeah we [04:28.000 --> 04:33.120] don't care either. I'm a little bit constrained in what I can share because I live in a small town [04:33.120 --> 04:41.200] and so if I were to give you all of the detail almost certainly somebody in the county government [04:41.200 --> 04:45.920] would see this video and because this is such a small town they go I know who he's talking about [04:45.920 --> 04:50.880] or I know what that is and then they would go mess with people in the business community so I apologize [04:50.880 --> 04:55.200] if I have to keep this a little bit vague but I don't want to burn anybody. Whether I'm talking [04:55.200 --> 05:01.280] to people at the door because there's door people these days right and so everybody just passes by [05:01.280 --> 05:07.520] and they might say something about a mask or not anymore. I don't do that. I actually engage them [05:07.520 --> 05:12.320] in conversation and some of them turn out to be really great people and we've developed a certain [05:12.320 --> 05:21.040] degree of friendship and they're not buying into it. They've got a role at the door and basically [05:21.760 --> 05:27.280] they're getting their hourly wage they're standing at the door and I don't mean this in a lazy or [05:27.280 --> 05:33.920] irresponsible way but they're just doing as little as possible because nobody cares anymore. You get [05:33.920 --> 05:41.360] to management. I've talked to quite a number of business managers and they're like all we're [05:41.360 --> 05:50.640] trying to do is the bare minimum not to get fined or perhaps shut down. We don't care. We're just [05:50.720 --> 05:58.560] trying to be just obedient enough that we don't get in trouble. I had initially during that [05:58.560 --> 06:04.480] intense period I had some run-ins with some corporations in Las Vegas and ended up having [06:04.480 --> 06:13.520] conversations with them. Now when I go to those locations they're like hey Dave how are you okay [06:14.320 --> 06:22.480] and yeah they don't care either. So I make the point that we've got this framework of totalitarianism [06:23.200 --> 06:30.480] and I've heard the phrase COVID fatigue which is absolute nonsense. Here's the deal. [06:31.600 --> 06:38.560] If this was something like smallpox where 30 in some cases at the very high end 35% of the people [06:38.560 --> 06:45.120] who are infected died yeah everybody'd be on it right. Everybody'd be on it. It's such a hyper [06:45.120 --> 06:52.800] vigilant and hyper responsible. Clearly this is not that situation right. When we talk about the [06:52.800 --> 06:59.360] fact that government cannot stop the spread of a virus it can't do it at the best of times okay. [06:59.360 --> 07:04.000] Again if this was smallpox with 30 to 35 percent of the people who are infected dying the people [07:04.720 --> 07:07.280] would be doing everything they could. The government wouldn't have to say a word. The [07:07.280 --> 07:10.560] government might do a little education through the media and that would be it. The people would [07:10.560 --> 07:16.560] be doing it because at that kind of death toll yeah people are going to get really engaged right. [07:16.560 --> 07:24.320] Today it's pretty much exactly the opposite okay. People are not engaged but by having this [07:24.320 --> 07:35.440] totalitarian dictatorial framework now everybody's backpedaling away from all these requirements. So [07:35.840 --> 07:42.000] if I can get away with not doing this and not doing that and not doing the other I'm going to [07:42.000 --> 07:46.400] stop doing those things because they're a pain in my ass okay. It doesn't matter whether it's the [07:46.400 --> 07:51.840] private citizen or whether it's somebody at the door whether it's a manager whether it's an [07:51.840 --> 07:57.040] executive. I mean I've had several executives tell me we want nothing to do with mask orders. [07:57.040 --> 08:01.840] We're doing just enough not to get in trouble. I've had several corporate executives tell me that. [08:02.640 --> 08:09.200] What we have is this thing where these governors and these perhaps county health officials they [08:09.200 --> 08:15.440] think they're out there kicking butt on the virus through this dictatorial framework [08:16.480 --> 08:23.520] which is basically accomplishing nothing because as far as I can tell with my experience [08:24.480 --> 08:33.040] there's just this dramatic foot dragging everybody's doing just enough not to get in trouble [08:34.000 --> 08:39.280] and there is no way to handle an infectious outbreak where everybody feels like they're [08:39.280 --> 08:42.960] under the gun they're threatened they're going to lose money they're going to lose their job [08:42.960 --> 08:47.920] this out of the other they're going to get the business shut down. That is not the way to gain [08:47.920 --> 08:52.400] the cooperation of the public. Now there are some people who are just go along to get along. There [08:52.400 --> 08:56.240] are some people who just adore government. There are people who are government sycophants [08:56.880 --> 09:06.000] but there's this other huge percentage that if you explain it to them and you ask them [09:07.760 --> 09:12.960] more than likely they're going to cooperate. If you try and shove it down their throats [09:14.480 --> 09:18.880] that's exactly what they're going to give you in a million little different ways right. [09:18.880 --> 09:25.360] They're going to make sure that they do everything they can to ensure that whatever [09:25.360 --> 09:30.880] tyrannical conduct is being engaged in by the government they're going to find a million little [09:30.880 --> 09:37.760] ways to oppose it because you tried to ram it down their throats rather than talking to them [09:38.560 --> 09:45.520] rather than having a dialogue rather than saying I'm not going to do this but I am going to [09:45.520 --> 09:51.520] ask for your cooperation. So to go all the way back to the beginning of this conversation [09:51.520 --> 09:58.160] the two models one is education and ask people to work with you and the other is the choice [09:58.160 --> 10:07.520] that these governors have made. In my opinion just that is that we haven't you look at the [10:07.520 --> 10:13.680] numbers right everybody knows the position we're in right now yes and by the way I think it's just [10:13.680 --> 10:20.320] natural I mean everybody's like pulling their hair out you know it's just what happens in winter [10:20.320 --> 10:25.440] when it's cold and everybody's indoors and there's a contagious virus going around especially in [10:25.440 --> 10:31.440] upper respiratory causing a respiratory disease causing virus. This is just yeah a lot of people [10:31.440 --> 10:37.520] are getting it and that's mother nature okay so because I understand the physiology of it I'm [10:37.600 --> 10:43.440] not quite as I guess maybe freaked out as the people who are all emotionally invested so my [10:43.440 --> 10:48.080] point is we started this nonsense in March and April that's when the government started getting [10:48.080 --> 10:54.720] tough with everybody and here we are the day before Christmas it hasn't accomplished anything [10:55.360 --> 11:00.080] I think part of the reason well the main reason is government can't stop the spread of the virus [11:00.080 --> 11:03.760] so that's the number one reason for the failure but the number two is the dynamic that I believe [11:03.760 --> 11:13.680] I've tried to address here which is the pushback from citizens from businesses from people who [11:13.680 --> 11:22.160] comprise those businesses entry level supervisory management executive they just don't want to be [11:22.160 --> 11:30.000] pushed around anymore so their way of addressing being pushed around is to drag their feet in [11:30.000 --> 11:36.320] every way they possibly can to defeat what the dictator is trying to do. [11:36.960 --> 11:40.880] If I was an elected official over a particular jurisdiction I was in the executive branch and I [11:40.880 --> 11:50.880] want a cooperation I would ask for it. It is something like a contagious disease outbreak [11:50.880 --> 11:58.080] I would ask I would explain I would do an education campaign and then I would ask for this [11:58.080 --> 12:03.600] cooperation and I would keep asking and I would keep reinforcing and I would keep the education [12:03.600 --> 12:07.680] process up and I would remind them and then I would ask them again and then I would come back. [12:09.760 --> 12:16.240] What I would not do when the success of the venture depends on the cooperation of the [12:16.240 --> 12:22.320] community what I would not do is threaten them which is what the governors have chosen to do. [12:23.200 --> 12:27.280] The reason I bring this up is you might say Dave who cares I mean we're at we're at this is [12:28.080 --> 12:34.960] acute academic argument but really who cares and I agree however it's not too late for some of [12:34.960 --> 12:39.840] these governors to change not that they're going to change because I say anything perhaps more [12:39.840 --> 12:50.480] importantly looking down the road this is not going to be the last virus that causes illness [12:50.480 --> 12:56.640] and death that we're going to have either an epidemic or a pandemic. This is not the last [12:56.640 --> 13:00.960] time this is going to happen so I think it's important especially when we look at these [13:00.960 --> 13:05.600] emergency power laws moving forward right that desperately are in need of amending. [13:06.160 --> 13:13.600] When we look at these laws I think it's really important to consider your opinion may be different [13:13.600 --> 13:24.320] than mine to consider whether a wiser better choice by government of a free people is to [13:24.320 --> 13:36.800] educate encourage reach out to seek cooperation rather than mandating which brings us exactly [13:36.800 --> 13:41.920] to where we find ourselves today. And if you're watching this on Christmas morning [13:41.920 --> 13:51.280] Merry Christmas to you and yours.