Fear Is the Key to Compliance

A BFD Transcript

Rodney:

Ordinarily, and rightly so, leaders go out of their way to calm a population, particularly when you confront a catastrophe and leaders want to calm you, want to explain to you that we can get through this, that it’s under control and we’ve faced worse and we can manage it.

You know, you think of the great Winston Churchill through WWII, he calmed a population and made them believe that they would get through it and that they would prevail.

And when we have a catastrophe in New Zealand that’s how we expect leaders to work and there’s a reason for that. Fear is a very primal, primitive reaction, it’s like you are on the savannah and you’re a mammal and you suddenly see a tiger. Everything in your body shuts down, your mind stops working and every bit of your energy goes to running and getting away from that tiger or whatever it is. And that has stayed with us, the primal fear that probably worked when we were early humans on the savannah.

But in modern day, in a civilised life, that fear is a dangerous thing and it can infest a mob. What it means is that you stop thinking. You stop being reasonable and you become very, very compliant because you are scared.

Now, what I’ve never seen before, is governments around the world ramping up fear in the population – this thing is terrible, this is going to be so bad.

As soon as you infect that fear people become irrational, people become unreasonable. And, of course, tin-pot dictators all around the world, all down through history have used fear to control their population. Usually, it’s a fear of the outside…umm…strange forces…indeed cults do it and sometimes I look at this thinking it’s sort of like we’ve got a cult.

And, of course with that fear and that cult like behaviour comes don’t trust anyone but me because there are bad people out there that are telling you wrong. And these are dangerous people, they are infiltrating you.

So, right from day one, rather than say, look, there’s this disease coming, it’s going to be bad…aah…people are going to die, this was presented like some movie Hollywood script that it was going to be a sort of zombie attack and it was going to be this extraordinary collapse.

Now, I’m not prone to fear, funnily enough, and umm… for some reason I just love numbers and I like patterns so I wasn’t given over to this fear and I knew from day one that it was exaggerated because we had the example of the Diamond Princess.  And as you say, back then we had people that were speaking out – that was the ship that got infected – and you know most people didn’t get sick and very few died.

Leighton:

In Sydney, of all places.

Rodney:

Yes, and those that died you’re thinking you’re cooped up on a ship. Back in the day, the bloody flagship would have arrived…half a dozen survivors…and everyone dead on it, you know, what a bizarre…it would have sailed up to Venice as a death ship…got the plague.

And at that time, you could still find experts who were speaking out against it. Now…but the fear has set it nonetheless, and I think it remains.

And then you have this attitude toward the media and let’s give them…let’s give them the best of intentions – which I struggle to do on a good day – “oh, it’s a pandemic and if you write anything contrary to the pandemic then you will be, you know, undermining our health initiatives. This isn’t about politics, this is about saving the people, so you have to keep with the story.”

That just served to keep the fear up. If you publish something like Simon Thornley or you know the host of people that were saying “this is just overblown” you are undermining the people following the rules which is just stay inside and not go surfing and not take the kids to the park to play so you cannot print those people. This is a pandemic.

It’s like you are fighting WWII and you can’t have anyone saying the Germans might have a point, you know, or are you sure we should be sending our men to this place? You can’t allow that.

And then, that has developed early on and I have seen this before in the climate catastrophe debate where the next step, very quickly is anyone suggesting an alternative is a bad person – and again, that’s part of that fear.

You know, if you are not part of our group, if you are not agreeing with us, you are a person that has to be excommunicated. You have to be expunged. You know, you have to be…

Leighton:

Put down.

Rodney:

…tied to a pole…tied to a pole and set on fire. Absolutely put down and we have seen that done in the media viciously.

You know, you’re an anti-vaxxer, you’re a conspiracy theorist, you’ve gone down the rabbit hole, you do your research on the internet – and then you’re just de-platformed.

And so, the mainstream media just take you out. You’re never reported again because you are undermining the message.

And then if you start going on Facebook or…then Facebook censors you and you find another thing, another platform but then that’s just taking your research from the internet. Doesn’t matter that person has extraordinary credentials and our so-called experts here you know, are pathetic in comparison, in academic terms.

No, no, no, no, that person on the internet has to be de-platformed.

And now we’ve seen that thing of…the outside, that fear that turned every other human being into a biohazard…this is the most extraordinary thing that rather than…we are a social animal…you know, as Aristotle observed, we are a people that need to…I thought I was a pretty solitary fellow until we had lockdown and when we came out of lockdown I just loved hugging people, talking to people, because we need that to live!

But this idea that people are sort of…they are a biohazard and we can’t go near them because it could kill us – that was an extraordinary achievement because it broke down our ability to discuss and talk and to care.

And of course, then we have this vaccination programme and suddenly those that don’t get double vaxxed are outsiders who are going to kill us all, who are nasty people and they could be satisfactorily vilified. And you say, “I’ve done my double vax, you know you just do yours and you’ll keep your job, you can still be a policeman. But if you don’t get double vaxxed, that’s your choice.” Out of a job.

That was extraordinary, that we put up with that – I couldn’t believe that was New Zealand. But that was driven by fear. That was…that was…you know I went to Albania after it fell down and you realise that this guy who held power (indecipherable) or whatever his name was – they just held the people so scared of everyone that was outside. They were terrified of outsiders.

We have become terrified of this disease, terrified of people, terrified of the double vax – and terrified of the protesters!

Leighton:

Let me…let me just…no, you finish, because you’re on a roll.

Rodney:

The protesters could infect us, they could undermine our policy, they could undo all our good work and it’s become open season. I have never, ever in my entire life heard – I am going to mispronounce the word – the vipuration – is that how you say it? The abuse that has been hurled by the media, by commentators, by MPs in our parliament against a group of New Zealanders.

I have never heard such vile abuse and the police do it umm…I don’t say the police on the front line do it but the police hierarchy do it who are running their communications team and working in with the Beehive. They do it. The vilification of a group of people!

Look, we disagree with people all the time. We have violent disagreements – not violent in the sense of fighting but strong…we don’t vilify people, we don’t excommunicate them, we don’t remove them from society.

We have commentators respected commentators saying “Bring in the army” and “Get the batons” you know, “Drive these people out”.

It’s terrible – and what is driving it? Well, I think it’s not that the people are fundamentally nasty, I disagree with it, but I think they’re in fear.

The journalists are sitting up on parliament too scared to mingle amongst the journalists…

Leighton:

You mean mix amongst the demonstrators?

Rodney:

The demonstrators, yes sorry. Mix among the protest because, “Oh, we might get sick.” And, of course, the protesters are wonderful because they are like us, or like me. We are not scared. You know I am not scared of this virus.

Now, I am no more scared of this virus than I am of having a car accident. I am mindful that I could have a car accident, I take very good precautions that I don’t, I am a very careful driver, but I still hop in my car and drive.

Leighton:

Have you challenged anyone…let me challenge you on that point?

Rodney:

Please.

Leighton:

On the basis that…my immediate reaction when you said that was you…and I think it’s a fair comparison to talk about a car accident with getting the virus, on the basis that, how many have we got at the moment?

Yesterday was close enough to 3000 for a day. Well, we don’t have 3000 car accidents a day. In other words, the chances of copping the virus are at this point of time far higher than being involved in a car accident.

Rodney:

Yeah, well that might be true but I’d much rather have Covid than have even a mild car accident. These 3000 people, some of them don’t know they are sick. That’s the extraordinary thing.

Leighton Smith’s Podcast No 144 on Wednesday 23 February 2022