The pandemic riches are sustaining panic, which is contributing to the erosion of democracy around the world

Signatures are now being collected on the portal manabalss.lv for “unjustifiably unvaccinated” Covid-19 patients to cover the costs of treatment themselves. One does not even want to think about what anti-humanitarian proposals could follow next, but already today there is a rapid increase in conflict situations in schools between Covid skeptics and Covid hysterics.

Both among students and among teachers. The mutual intolerance of the society is obviously growing, and Kariņš's government is just supporting and maintaining this intolerance with its decisions.

It is often said: do not lend money to someone close to you if you do not want to damage your relationship. It seems that the huge money that has been issued and given to governments to deal with the consequences of a pandemic threatens to have an extremely negative impact on the moral-ethical climate of society and on the principles of democracy around the world.

Beneficiaries and distributors of the money deliberately incite panic in society, as they understand that the conditional "freedom" to receive and spend money will only last as long as society accepts the principle that it is cynical and inhumane to count pennies during a pandemic. As soon as the main news in the media are no longer about Covid and life returns to normal, the abundance of money will end. That is why there are those who incite panic, scare the public and, above all, want to maintain the state of emergency for as long as possible, when "there is now more money than there has ever been before".

If it was just about money, then you might not worry too much about it, because money is just money. However, there is a clear erosion of democratic principles. Even the slightest deviation from the principles of democracy must cause alarm because democracy is not a natural form of human government that exists on its own without extra effort. Democracy, like any order, must be maintained at all times. As soon as the order is not maintained, disorder begins to form on its own. As soon as we start to turn a blind eye to the disregard for certain democratic principles in the name of the "common good of society", the well-known, well-intentioned road to hell begins. The safest way to avoid going down this road is to learn to recognize it and not give in to the intoxicating siren songs that it's for the benefit of all of us.

Putin's Russia, or worse, Hitler's Germany with its gas chambers, is an extremely frightening example, but at the same time, it seems so distant and crazy. So it may seem that this could never happen to us. But, as one Eastern sage said, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Here is another example.

Parliamentary elections were held in Canada on Monday. There, they are still real enough not to be put in quotation marks, as is the case with the three-day "elections" of the performative parliament in Russia, but even in this very liberal, democratic society, totalitarian recidivists are emerging. The current Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, said at his Liberal Party's pre-election rally that vaccine passports were meant to reward people who "did the right thing" with certain freedoms, while those who "still resist" simply will not be able to enjoy them.

With a loud cheer, the crowd supported the idea that freedoms are a reward for "doing the right thing", not something that is inherent in people since their birth. Many in Canada are worried about this statement by Trudeau and describe it as an expression of tyranny because freedoms must not be a reward for acting in a way the government likes. Freedoms are not something the government grants or deprives.

This doctrine has already been implemented in Russia. Those who are loyal to Putin's power have various privileges and freedoms, but those who dare to openly oppose the regime have no freedoms. At any time, not just you yourself can be thrown into prison, but also your relatives, such as the father of Alexei Navalny's ally Ivan Zhdanov or the aunt of opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov. But the worst part is that perhaps even in a completely free and democratic plebiscite, the majority of Russian society would support such an order. Just as in Canada, many would support Trudeau's mildly undemocratic treatment of freedoms.

I'm afraid to even think about how true and deep (exaggerated and shallow) could be the support of the classical principles of democracy in Latvia. It is clear that in the plan of human consciousness, the layer of humanism and democracy is falling apart frighteningly fast. But it just doesn't seem to bother the world much.