The Million Acre Prison

What follows is a response to a doctor named Daniel - a friend of a friend.  Living in Seattle, he wrote an article advocating that parents lose the right to make health decisions for their children concerning the covid shot.  He considered ‘public safety’ more important than the right to direct and raise one’s own children.  I wrote him the following response:

Dear Daniel, 

My friend Marianne forwarded your article to me.  I thought I would take a moment to respond and let you know of my recent trip to Canada, as it is a sobering reflection on where your kind of argument can take a nation.

My husband and I had a cottage in Prince Edward Island which we have been unable to visit due to Canada’s Covid restrictions - so we sold it.  We had to travel there to get our personal items.  We took a Covid test good for 72 hours, flew to Maine and rented a UHaul in the US so that we could get right in, load it up, and get right back out again (without interacting with a single human) within the 72 hours of our test.

Little did we know that Canada has completely lost its mind concerning Covid.  Once we got there, we were imprisoned in our cottage.  That was after we were forced to read; on camera; a statement that we agreed to 3 YEARS in PRISON, and a million dollar fine - if we stepped foot off our property.  Canada, in their rush to ‘keep everyone safe’ has created a nationwide prison system for every citizen - criminal or not.  Citizens have been hired to spy and report on each other.  There’s an actual ‘Covid Army’ of people ready and willing to do this to ‘keep everyone safe’.  When we were processed in at the processing tents (that oddly resembled the ones I used to teach about from the Holocaust history lesson); the doctor there told us that he had had a grandchild born a year ago - less than a 40-minute drive from his home.  Yet he has not seen the child; he has not received ‘permission’ from the government to do so.  But he quickly acknowledged that it was ‘okay’ since the government was ‘keeping them all safe’.

So do prisons for prisoners, but I didn’t want to mention that.  Because there’s a strange thing about suddenly finding yourself in a totalitarian country - you immediately become fearful of every move; every statement; every action.  The first thing you realize is that the freedom you used to feel is gone.  There is fear instead.  My husband is a retired Naval Officer, and I am a lawyer - an officer of the Court in 2 different States, trusted with many things.  I used to represent criminals, and visit them in prison.  I know what a lack of freedom can feel like.  And in Canada it was everywhere.  We were treated like criminals, and had all freedoms removed - because of a germ.  All my husband would say was “I didn’t fly combat missions in the Navy so that I could watch a democratic nation descend into this!”

We were repeatedly tested for Covid.  The government called every day, and sent constant text messages that we had to answer.  Citizens drove past our cottage to make sure we were ‘complying’.  The police checked in.  Public Health Officers - nice people I’m sure, but certainly not trained (or elected!) in how to govern a nation - were suddenly given dictatorial powers.  And since people are all different - the ‘rules’ were different with every new ‘public health officer’ we spoke with.  Some enjoyed their power a little too much; and were savoring the opportunity to force others to do whatever they wanted.  Others were kind, and just trying to do their job - which was difficult because depending on who you spoke to at any given time - the ‘rules’ kept changing.

We were fearful that we would simply never be allowed out of Canada; and able to return to America - the Land of Freedom.

So far.

Your kind of reasoning, however, will not keep it free for long.  I sympathize with you because I also was raised, and lived, in a very ‘liberal’ part of the nation.  I was infused with the concept that people were basically stupid, parents were basically bad, and we ‘Intelligent People’ of the ‘State’ had to ‘give them correct guidance’ on how to live.

I then got married and moved all over the US, and traveled all over the world.  And I discovered that all the things I had been taught - were actually - not true.  People essentially are able to consider many different forms of evidence and points of view.  Parents, overwhelmingly, are good and trying to do the best for their children.  And ANY TIME you empower the ‘State’ with the rights to determine HOW people should live - regardless of the ‘nobleness’ or ‘rightness’ of the purposes - you create a nightmare that has the potential to destroy countless lives.  Indeed, in the 20th century alone, we saw such ‘States/nations’ destroy millions upon millions of them.

I was also a history teacher and have studied, and taught, the Holocaust.  You may not be aware but one of the first things that the German government did in singling out, and ostracizing, their Jewish citizens, was to tell people that they carried ‘diseases’.  Once they had a fearful populace, it was a fairly small step to convince people that their fellow neighbors, and often friends, who were Jewish, needed to be ‘separated’ from them.  Ghettos, and then concentration camps, followed shortly thereafter.

Ideas have consequences; and the ideas that you espouse in your article are not new.  They have been used by every single totalitarian form of government to convince people of the ‘rightness’ of their actions.  Their job becomes easier because then they have a convinced populace that their actions are ‘noble’ and ‘right’ - and if those who are ‘bad’ don’t behave - well just lock them up and send them away.  If you read the comments following your article; it is chilling to see how many actually advocate such a thing.  

Today.  

AFTER the Holocaust.  

AFTER the example of communism and the slaughter of millions.

Never forget that something like 90+ percent of the German people approved of the Nazi’s.  Hitler was ELECTED.  They thought that the Nazi’s were ‘improving’ their lives; and ‘keeping them safe’.  Same with the early communists.  Only too late did people realize that with that ‘security’ and that ‘safety’ - came chains, and soon, death.  The chance of dying from Covid is fairly small.  The chance of dying from torture and execution was actually almost 100% in these prior nations - and in those still governed that way today.  But it doesn’t happen overnight.  It takes time to convince people to imprison themselves.  One must woo them with fear, and the belief that their own life is the single most important thing in the world - more important than even freedom.  Then, of course, one must complete the process by convincing a nation that it is ‘selfishness’ for others to live their life in a manner unapproved by the ‘state’.

For one can not conquer, unless one first - divides.

Our Founding Fathers knew this; and fought hard to give us that Freedom.  They didn’t let things like potential death, dismemberment, impoverishment and ostracization deter them.  They realized that there are worse things than death - there is enslavement for one’s self; and one’s children.

Freedom is worth fighting for.  It surely is worth the time it’s taken me to write this letter.  As one of our Founding Fathers said:  

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”  Patrick Henry

Were we only to remember those words during these dark days when the future of our nation; and our children; lies in the balance - then there might still be hope.  My recent Canadian experience has shown me how quickly people are willing to purchase those chains and enslavement all over again; and how foolishly they value ‘safety’ and ‘security’ above the ability to live their own life in freedom.  Whether that life be long OR short - they can still at least claim that it is theirs.  I pray that you don’t give this freedom up so easily.

Kind regards,

Susan Patton Fox, JD

Attorney, Educator, Author

Images from Canada’s ‘Checkpoint Charlie’ of 2021.

“But don’t worry, it’s to keep you ‘safe’.”