The Two Weeks That Stretched into a Year, Part II

Exactly a year ago today, Texas shut down. Yesterday, the state officially lifted mandates and shutdowns. I went grocery shopping. Stores required masks, and people wore them. Nothing feels different yet. Maybe we could even speculate that no mandates or shutdowns were ever required. All people wanted and needed was accurate information—which is what we didn’t get.

Our household suffered less than many. We work at home, didn’t have kids in school. As an introvert, I was content to stay home most days with no pressure to be somewhere. That’s harder for Mr. Spherical Model. We have gotten through the year healthy (with exceptions of injury recovery for Mr. Spherical Model, unrelated to the pandemic). That probably gives me ability to consider what happened with less emotion than those who suffered greater losses. But I wanted to take a look back at this year today. My recounting is pretty mundane, but it may be useful for history—at least to me.

 

What We’ve Been Through This Year

Wikipedia has something of a detailed timeline. So I’m going to do one highlighting what I remember and experienced this past locked-down year. Feel free to skim. 

January 2020

·         We start hearing about this virus that supposedly came from a Wuhan wet market, which is spreading in China. We’re told it spreads by eating bat soup, not human-to-human.

screenshot from Epoch Times documentary on CCP virus

·         We hear of it spreading person-to-person in China, despite denials.

·         January 30 President Trump closes travel from China. Meanwhile, he is derided by Democrats for being racist.

February 2020

·         President Trump closes travel from Italy, where there is a serious outbreak, overwhelming hospitals, with high death rates particularly among the elderly.

·         Meanwhile Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco and Andrew Cuomo in New York City are calling for people to come out to Chinese New Year festivities, to show they are not cowed by President Trump’s “fearmongering.”

·         A cruise ship has an outbreak. People from the ship are quarantined until they are completely cleared of the disease.

The Grand Princess cruise ship had an
outbreak of COVID-19 a year ago.
Getty image from here

·         We begin learning that the virus came from a lab near Wuhan. It may have been an accidental leak; whistleblowers died. WHO said whatever the Chinese Communist Party told them to say. The Epoch Times calls it the CCP virus, which is probably most accurate.

March 2020

·         We work the polls for the primary election.

·         I sing in a choir, unaware that this won’t happen again for a very long time.

·         President Trump calls for businesses to retool to provide needed PPE (personal protective equipment). We need to rethink supply chains.

·         Democrats complain that President Trump has not done enough to prevent the spread, or to provide PPE.

·         Our kids visit and attend an off-season league football game—turns out to be the last outing for a while.

·         The rest of the Houston Rodeo is cancelled.

·         Businesses are shut down (March 11, 2020)—for two weeks, to “flatten the curve,” meaning to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed to the point that people die because of lack of resources for them.

·         We begin work on the district platform by Zoom meeting (which becomes very common this year).

·         District convention is postponed.

·         Schools close temporarily.

·         Our church closes temporarily—no Sunday or weekday meetings.

·         Our book club, which we hold in a nursing home with a resident there, is cancelled indefinitely.

·         We find ourselves mostly homebound, because Mr. Spherical Model broke his ankle (March 13), so he can’t walk or drive.

·         Early on, I imagine hospitals with overwhelming numbers of sick people, in parking lots, unable to get help inside. Why else would such drastic measures be put in place? This never happens anywhere in Texas. Some areas of New York and New Jersey were briefly overwhelmed, but no one went without help, as had happened in Italy.

·         President Trump starts holding daily press briefings on the pandemic, along with Drs. Fauci and Birx and others, to inform and reassure the public.

·         People start making masks at home, in large numbers to supply others. (I make enough for us to get by.) Clothing and other manufacturing companies retool to make PPE. Innovation happens to supply larger numbers of ventilators, which we later learn are seldom needed.

·         Dr. Fauci at first says the public should not use masks; they don’t work. Later he says they should wear masks. He excuses his lie because he had been concerned that the public would use up what was needed by healthcare professionals (our first hint that he lies because he doesn’t trust the public).

·         Guidelines are given for “social distancing,” which becomes a ubiquitous phrase: Stay home unless going out is necessary. Avoid contact with people outside your home. Stay outdoors, or, when indoors stay six feet apart; when unable to social distance indoors, then wear a mask. [This quickly got distorted into masks everywhere, in addition to social distancing, and in some places even outdoors alone, like on a surfboard or a bicycle.]

·         Texas suffers its first 47 deaths between March 16^th and the end of the month.

April 2020

·         More than two weeks have passed, the curve is lowered, so that there is no concern of overwhelming the system. But lockdowns and mandates continue with no indication of when they will be lifted.

·         The clearer it gets that there is no chance of overwhelming the hospitals, the more draconian the demands are on the people.

·         Schools either go virtual or shut down for the remainder of the school year.

·         Tax payments are postponed for 90 days. 

·         Governments show authoritarianism, inflicting mask mandates, identifying which businesses they will allow to open, and shutting down churches during Easter season, even when the churches are willing to meet outdoors, in cars, distanced, with no one coming into contact with others in the congregation. 

·         Good news comes out that doctors are successfully treating patients by intervening early with hydroxychloroquine along with zinc and azithromycin, as well as some other successful treatments. 

·         President Trump mentions a couple of treatment options and receives huge backlash. The media tout a Lancet study, which is one week later repealed, because it was a lie. Other studies touted use parts of useful protocols but at the wrong times—and in lethal doses—and then proclaim drugs such as hydroxychloroquine are dangerous. The media continues to tout these false studies and begins censoring information about useful treatments. 

May 2020

·         We’re doing church at home entirely. Fortunately, we’d been prepared over the past couple of years to be able to do just that.

·         Mr. Spherical Model, who has been commuting to work in his upstairs home office by scooting up the stairs on his backside, begins physical therapy to be able to walk again.

Mr. Spherical Model commuting
upstairs to his office

·         People who put businesses on hold “for two weeks” do some civil disobedience. [I heard Shelley Luther and her husband both testify on HB 3 today in the House State Affairs committee meeting; they are still fighting the criminalization she went through, even though she opened her business safely and no one spread the virus there—but she did it before government allowed. Yet government did nothing to repair the “takings” they did to her and many other people.] 

·         We visit kids—all of whom have been safely virus-free—for a birthday celebration.

·         I did the garden this year, since Mr. Spherical Model cannot.

June 2020

·         Our community pool is closed for the summer, even though outdoors, and with chlorinated water, spreading is unlikely. Our neighborhood park has all the equipment taken down and is closed. We will not get any refund from the HOA for this loss of amenities.

·         We hold the district convention in person, beyond county boundaries to avoid the county judge’s no-gathering orders. No one gets or spreads the virus at this gathering of several hundred people.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw speaks at
our District 7 convention June 15, 2020

·         I no longer disinfect my groceries as I bring them into the house. There’s something called “viral load” that means, unless you have an infected person sneeze a lot of saliva right on your items, you’re not likely to have the virus passed to you from items, food, packages, clothing, etc.

·         We still don’t know anyone who has had the virus. I start keeping track of data, including my zip code, where we have our first two deaths.

·         Riots have become a daily part of life in several cities around the country; these are not thought to spread the virus for some reason. 

July 2020

·         We help our neighbor rehabilitate his pool so I can swim daily.

·         I attend the first two days of the State Republican Convention committee meetings in person, downtown (I’m editing the platform, not on a committee). I work the third day from home. No illness is spread to anyone attending these in-person meetings.

·         That same week Mr. Spherical Model runs our primary election runoff (postponed from May), safely, but in an unpleasant alternate location. There is PPE and hand sanitizer everywhere. People use a latex finger glove to touch equipment, and are given sanitizing wipes. All is safer than grocery shopping; nevertheless, the interim county clerk attempts multiple ways of thwarting election integrity and blaming it on the virus. This is a wake-up call for the November election.

·         The rest of the State Convention is done virtually because of the Mayor’s last-minute contract-breaking lockdown order. Doing business virtually with 7,000+ people is nigh unto impossible. We face denial of service and other hacking problems (including on the platform). Business is not completed at this time.

·         Frontline Doctors begin speaking out—but are silenced. Some are fired. [Months later, now, we know what they said was true.] 

Frontline Doctors speak out.
screenshot from here

August 2020

·         We start having in-person church, limited to 50 people, in masks and social distanced, per session. I offer to play the organ for our session—even though we aren’t allowed to sing—promising to wipe it down afterward.

·         We’ve missed having our Texas grandchildren each spend a week with us, as in other summers, but we get a quick visit.

·         Texas has had a surge, but by the end of the month is in decline. At this point the county judge places a graphic on the county public health site to indicate we are in the red zone, high alert, despite the decline. [This graphic never changes, no matter what the numbers are, we now know.]

from the Harris County
public health site

·         Using the pandemic as an excuse for skirting election integrity rules—particularly concerning ballots by mail—increases. 

·         I attend an online music festival, which in some ways offers more than in-person, and is less expensive. It has been a hard time for musicians and others who make their living from music festivals and other performances.

·         We help son Economic Sphere and his wife move into their first owned home.

September 2020

·         Schools are either delayed or done with some combination of in-person and virtual teaching. Our grandchildren, in a small Texas town, get to attend in person but must wear masks. Schools around us are mixed—parents decide. Teachers must do both.

·         Teachers we know are among the most frightened about getting COVID-19, despite their relative youth and good health.

·         The President and First Lady get COVID-19 and recover quickly. 

·         A brother-in-law gets it and suffers badly—until he changes to a doctor that does the HCQ/zinc/Zithromax protocol and he improves almost instantly. 

·         There’s no trick-or-treating this year.

My grandson designed our pumpkin

·         We start having up to 100 people attend church, spread out. People have the option of joining virtually from home.

November 2020

·         The election fiasco happens—everything we warned against and more.

·         We work our polling place. None of our workers gets exposed to the virus.

·         People are warned not to gather for Thanksgiving. We nevertheless have Thanksgiving with kids—outdoor dining. So illness is spread at this gathering.

December 2020

·         Mr. Spherical Model injures his shoulder putting our Christmas tree up on the car. (I was inside Kroger waiting way too long for help.)

·         Mr. Spherical Model travels to help out a nephew; he further injures his shoulder.

·         Mr. Spherical Model gets shoulder surgery, preventing us from celebrating our anniversary. I spend the day wearing a mask in the waiting room. No illness is spread from this time in public.

·         We have our first Tea Party meeting since February. It is well attended, and we look at what we can do, looking forward to the legislative session. No one gets sick from attending this gathering.

·         People are warned not to gather for Christmas. We ignore that. Kids visit on Christmas day. But we have no church party or other gatherings. I make my specialty dipped chocolates as usual, but we have a difficult time knowing how to give them away. A few people accept plates dropped off at doorsteps. The rest get eaten by Mr. Spherical Model, who gains some temporary weight.

January 2021

·         We get to start singing at church. I play the piano until the organ gets fixed. Still limited to 100 people, with masks, spread out every other pew.

·         There are various versions of the vaccine available and being rolled out. I will not be getting one, since I am a lot more likely to have an adverse reaction to the vaccine than I am to die from the virus (assuming appropriate treatment—but my plan is to avoid ever getting it).

·         Authorities say you must wear a mask, even after both doses of the vaccine. They do not explain why that would be necessary. They do not well explain why people who have had the virus still need the vaccine and must wear masks and avoid gatherings.

·         Mr. Spherical Model begins physical therapy for his shoulder, while I do all the heavy lifting of putting Christmas away.

·         There are a million or so people at the US capitol on January 6^th, approximately .01% whom loot and pillage the place, with media blaming the President. No one talks about this being a super-spreader event, because it isn’t one.

·         The CDC (or is it WHO, who have US funding again because of Biden?) lowers the number of cycles for testing, which, not surprisingly, lowers numbers of new cases right after the Biden inauguration.

·         Since we spend so much time at home these days, we give in and get a puppy. She’s adorable, but big trouble—and getting very big soon (a Great Pyrenees).

Our new puppy likes snow.

February 2021

·         News media tell the surprising news that HCQ with zinc and Zithromax, and a couple of other treatments are actually effective—failing to explain why they’ve been censoring this information since March. 

·         President Biden claims there was no vaccine available when he took office—forgetting that he received both his doses prior to inauguration, the first in December and the second in early January.

·         We have friends and family members who have been getting the vaccines. It appears to be common for the second shot to be much worse than the first—causing pain and possibly a couple of days of fever. This is supposed to indicate that it is working. (I’m noting that, for some, this reaction is worse than the virus typically is for their demographic.)

·         We survive the “snowpocalypse” in Texas—without power for a day and a half, better off than those who lost power longer and had frozen pipes that burst. Loss of power suddenly looks like a greater catastrophe than a pandemic, the worst of which is the shutdown of society combined with refusal to allow treatments. 

·         There is concern that vaccination may be required for participation in various parts of society—shopping, traveling, attending events, for example. Then there is the question of how they know—will we have to carry around certifications? Will I be allowed an exemption for health reasons, or will I lose the ability to function in society?

·         The media suddenly becomes aware of what we knew almost a year ago: NY Governor Andrew Cuomo order infected people into nursing homes, causing the deaths of thousands, and then covered it up. And, by the way, he’s being called out for sexual harassment, as though that were the more important issue.

March 2021

·         CDC guidance now admits that wearing a mask after taking the virus will not be necessary.

·         The current occupant of the White House seems to have forgotten to address the joint houses of Congress this year.

·         Former President Trump addresses the country from CPAC in Florida, where there is a large gathering—allowed by Governor DeSantis. No one seems to be attempting to claim that CPAC will be a super-spreader event.

·         Governor Noem of South Dakota is something of a CPAC rock star, because she never locked down the state, and they fared as well or better than most states—without the damage to the economy.

·         Evidence shows that the states and cities with the tightest restrictions not only do not fare better than more open states; they fare worse. California is attempting to recall its governor. And New York’s governor is not likely to last much longer either.

·         My zip code is exactly average in Texas for deaths from COVID-19. There have been 17; three happened within a week in February. Before that most months had only 1. I have not known any. The daily active cases (7-day rolling average) has been decreasing since January 25.

·         The daily deaths for Harris County (7-day rolling average) is 12, where it has been for some time, down from a high of 40 in August.

from the Harris County Public Health site March 10, 2021

·         Daily deaths in Texas (7-day rolling average) have dipped below 200, down from 349 at the beginning of February, which is approximately what it was in August at the peak. It isn’t clear to me where those deaths are taking place, since I don’t track all 250 counties. Harris County claims high case counts still, although actual numbers don’t bear that out. But we make up nearly 14% of the state’s population yet only 6% of the state’s daily COVID deaths. Some people speculate it is illegal immigrants at the border bringing in cases, but data doesn’t show large case counts there.

What Have We Learned

We’ve learned not to trust government with our healthcare. When they continue a two-week lockdown indefinitely, without explaining why or setting reasonable expectations for when it will end, they lose our willing cooperation.

We’ve learned not to trust experts in a single specialty to set policy for all of society; they consider everything (and everybody) outside their specialty nonessential, expendable, or irrelevant.

 

Dr. Scott Atlas quantifies other losses compared to COVID-19 deaths,
as of half a year ago. Screenshot from here

We’ve learned not to trust the media to either tell us the truth or to allow truth to be told—even when that censoring costs lives.

Our family has been blessed to get through this entire year without losing a loved one to the disease. We know that’s not true for millions of people. We do know people who have lost close loved ones; the virus is real. But this virus may be a risk we learn to live with, as we have the 1918 flu and some other maladies. If we can grasp that, then life can get back to something approaching normal.

Virus conditions are better than they could be; it wasn’t as deadly as we feared, and there are treatments and vaccines. The economy and society are worse than they should be; we shouldn’t have let that happen, and we’d better prevent it going forward.

Coercive vs. Cautious Response

We’re seeing daylight after the onset of the pandemic now. Coming back, not quite to the normal we knew, but toward more functional than a shutdown. We don’t know all the data we would like for a complete picture, but it’s enough to conclude some things in general.

It has been a scary thing. The illness is real. It has taken many lives. But it has not taken anywhere near as many lives as we were told were likely—the scare that caused the world to shut down. In fact, the Imperial College model used to make that call was so wrong that it takes one’s breath away. Looking into it, people who do the technical work and coding for such things report they are appalled at the sloppy work and wonder how anything so full of trash was ever given credibility.

That’s a question I’d like answered at some point. How did a model by a British doctor who had been wildly inaccurate in every data model he’d ever produced—a person who violated his own lockdown protocol to carry out an adulterous affair—how did this person’s model get put forth as credible in the first place, let alone so credible that the world shut down over it?

The good news is that the virus was much less virulent than the model predicted.  And the changes society made to keep it from spreading at overwhelming rates accomplished their purpose.

But the accomplishment may not be in lives saved, but in deaths postponed. Because the virus spread slower, but not halted. Slow and steady wins the race, as the fable says. So the virus will still make it’s way through the population. The two advantages to a slower spread are preventing the hospitals from getting overwhelmed, and giving time for development of treatments.

Both of those goals are worthwhile, but it is debatable whether they have been worth what they have cost us. It isn’t a matter of saving lives vs. saving an economy. It is postponing lives lost in this particular way vs. losing lives in other ways as a result of the economic and social shutdown.

There are tradeoffs with almost any decision. Do you risk X to get Y? Do you know enough to judge whether the risk is worth it? Leaders in policy-making positions have to make this kind of decision every day.

But one thing I think we’re observing from this pandemic response is that there have been generally two categories of response: coercive or cautious. There has been very little cavalier, incautious response. So let’s look at just the two ways.

I’m in a state with a cautious response. We did do a statewide economic pause—with most businesses closed or working from home. Food, electricity, and emergency hospital care were still available. People began wearing masks a week or so into that time. And now that we’re nearly a month into slowly opening back up, most people in stores and more crowded places (by these new standards) still wear masks.

While Harris County, which contains most of Houston, has a comparatively high number of cases for the state, it has a low rate per population. Some of the darker spots in the graphic are actually smaller populations with a fairly low number of cases that wreak havoc on their stats.

Covid-19 cases per 1,000 residents in Texas, by county, as of May 28, 2020
Interactive graphic from Texas Tribune

The news from the Department of State Health Services today says that Texas is approaching the million tests milestone. With the increase in testing, positive responses are down in the 3% range. Hospitalizations for the virus peaked three weeks ago and have remained flat for a month. Active cases are down over 600. We’ve had our first two-day decline: down 391 Tuesday, down 216 more Wednesday.

In other words, even though we worried about a spike in new cases following phases 1 and 2 of opening up—which was certainly a common and logical expectation—we had a temporary rise, but that spike did not happen.

It may be that we’re coming into the hot humid weather that this virus doesn’t like. Florida's outcomes are similar to ours. 

But New Zealand, in their fall/winter season, just announced that their last Covid-19 patient left the hospital; they have zero active cases. So it may be that the virus has simply run its course, at least for now. It’s unknown whether we’ll get another surge in the fall. That will depend on whether there has been sufficient mutation of the virus to become essentially a new strain—like we get with the annual flu, which, if I understand correctly, is the ever-present remnant of the 1918 flu pandemic. So, that information is still unknown.

But, if the virus has actually been running its course, and we’ll be done with it, then some lives actually were saved by our slowing the spread. I’m open to that possibility. I know I’ve personally felt safer in public when people around me wear masks. Since I’m badly affected just by a common cold, I have to say the mask wearing and better hygiene by everyone has actually made me personally feel safer. But, I don’t think I have the right to ask everyone to wear masks forever (they’re not comfortable, and they cover everyone’s smile) just so I feel a bit safer.

So, for now I’m willing to look at mask wearing as a gesture of goodwill. But you don’t shame people for failing to step up to a particular level of goodwill just because you’re willing to step up there. Shaming is the opposite of a gesture of goodwill. And besides, you can’t coerce people into actual goodwill.

Which brings us back to the coercive version of leadership. Our county judge, Lina Hidalgo, is a handy example. She has tried mandating mask wearing—stopped by the governor. She has attempted to shut down parks. She has attempted to keep businesses closed longer than the governor’s recommendation—even though our hospitals have plenty of capacity and our population has not been hard hit. She has tried letting felons out of prison out of her compassion while simultaneously threatening to jail regular citizens for daring to go about their lives in some way she’s not willing to permit.

Last Thursday, when Mr. Spherical Model and I drove up to see our kids and grandkids for the first time in all these months, Hidalgo announced that the shutdown in Houston had to remain in effect until June 10. It took her an additional 15 hours to post the edict. Whether she has power to enforce it is another question. 

Yet we have, safe, cautious, goodwill moves to open things back up—not a sudden mobbing of the public spaces and businesses. So coercion was never necessary.

Coercion has a purpose other than our safety.

There is a direct correlation between coercion and economic damage; the harsher the shutdown rules, and the longer they are left in place, the more unemployment and economic fallout, obviously. But there is no correlation between coercive long shutdown and low death rates, at least in the United States. In fact, there appears to be almost an inverse correlation. Texas, Georgia, and Florida so far are getting great numbers after opening up. In fact, after some brief worry in mid-March, none of these states had much to worry about.

The hardest hit states seem to be those with more coercive measures.

Texas is 15th in order of total deaths. But when you take into account population, it's down near the bottom, in 41st place. 

Rate of Covid-19 cases per 100,000 population, by state, as of May 28, 2020
Original chart from Statista.com

I considered developing a graphic, to see whether there was a correlation by party and death rate. Maybe another day. I think we have the more typical urban/rural divide to explain many differences.

But I’m guessing that there are personality differences between the different reactions. People who are fearful submit more easily to more coercion. People who generally feel they’re in control of their own lives and destinies tend to resist coercion.

So, if you’re a power monger, a tyrant (or would-be tyrant), you stir up fear as a strategy to control your subjects.

Since you’re not a subject, but a citizen, you need to assert your own authority. In order to avoid being oppressed by a tyrant, you need to know as much as you can, to decide for yourself what you are willing to do for your own health and for others (two quite different values).

If you’re scared enough, you might trust government to decide for you when to attend church in person again. But if you’re capable of figuring out how to be as safe in a church as you are in Walmart or on a city bus, then maybe you don’t trust a government that keeps your church doors closed. Maybe you find something really wrong with how Chicago’s mayor sent authorities, swat style, to shut down a church. 

Or maybe you can decide, without the help of an overseer, when to go get a haircut from a stylist who wears a mask and washes everything carefully between customers. 

You might be living under tyranny if you are allowed to go to Walmart, but not to the beach and go out, alone, on a surfboard, because of the need to “flatten the curve.”

You might be living under tyranny if you’re allowed to take your family to the beach, but can’t sit on or picnic on the sand; you have to go directly from your car into the water. (Ben Shapiro suggested maybe he should use a cannon to shoot his children into the water from his car.)

You might be living under tyranny if golfing or skateboarding are considered risky for spreading a respiratory virus.

You might be living under tyranny if you’re allowed to walk on a path but not bicycle, because of the need to prevent spreading coronavirus.

You might be living under tyranny if you’re allowed to have online services broadcast from your church, but only if no one sings.

The stories pop up daily. Consider looking at each story and asking, does this make logical sense? And than ask, is this a cautious response or a coercive response?

One thing I think we’ll see is that coercive governments lead to much worse economic situations for their people, possibly combined with worse health outcomes. Again, some of the health differences will be because of urban density. And the density of Houston or Los Angeles is simply not the same as the density of New York or New Jersey. But, what if the coercive measures—for the sake of public safety—don’t actually accomplish public safety? What if your protective government enforces policies that put nursing homes at risk, and continue to run public transportation, but force you to lose your job or shut down your small business, stay in your home, and don’t leave for any reason except to get food? Are they keeping you safe, or keeping you controlled?

At what point are you willing to consider reasserting your own authority?

That’s what I’m suggesting. Breathe deep. Look at the actual real-time data for your location. Get a full picture—not just number of deaths, which goes up with no chance of going back down, obviously. But death rates per population, infection rates per population, intensity of infection for your demographic, and anything else that gives you something other than just the scariest numbers without context.

We can beat this thing. We’re doing that. And it seems to be letting up, possibly naturally without our doing anything but pray. (By the way, it looks to me that the worldwide fast day we had April 10 marked the beginning of the downward trend of the virus. Like this chart shows for Houston’s new cases per day.)

The 7-day rolling average of new cases is better than
the daily count, because testing gets reported irregularly. The upper line is
Harris County, which is much more populous than surrounding counties.
The chart is from the Houston Chronicle today, p. A20.
I added the red line to mark the date of our worldwide fast.

But can we beat the tyranny that has opportunistically used our fear for its evil purposes?

As plagues go, Covid-19 has been bad but not “Black Death” bad. But the government-caused economic and social devastation in the name of safety from the virus has been a worldwide plague not seen since—I don’t know. Pompeii? The flood?

Our recovery depends on reasserting our God-given rights to life, liberty, and property—to pursue happiness. It’s doable. Maybe in a relatively short time. But we have to throw off the fear to take away the tyrants’ power.