BETTER THAN BEING RIGHT: Overcoming the Collateral Damage of Fear

Matthew Levine—11/19/21

It [consultation] requires all participants to express their opinions with absolute freedom and without apprehension that they will be censured and/or their views belittled; these prerequisites for success are unattainable if the fear of violence or abuse is present.

—From a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an individual believer, 24 January, 1993

Any Bahá'í who has served on an assembly or committee knows the value of consultation. The teachings of our Faith give us tools to enable us to communicate effectively without hurting others' feelings while arriving at a consensus on any given issue. It's not always easy but what skill that merits practice is?

Since March of 2020 we have seen differences of opinion among the masses of citizens everywhere, Bahá'ís not excluded. Consultation has often not factored in our deliberations, if at all, leaving believers unwilling to consider others' point of view and therefore creating disunity. 

The division that opposing medical beliefs have created in our community, I feel, is not because of the beliefs themselves but for one main reason: fear. We have often let fear override the importance of treating each other with deference, respect, and kindness. Fear has prompted some to ridicule, shame, and ostracize those with opposing beliefs and has left many friends feeling disrespected, abandoned, and the subjects of medical apartheid. Many have felt so alone that they have contemplated leaving their Faith and some perhaps have done so.

Fear is a very powerful social engineering technique that has been used to manipulate citizens successfully for centuries, it's apotheosis manifesting in the loss of freedom and complete dependency on government and ultimately in servitude as manifested in totalitarian regimes.

Dr. Peter Breggin, psychiatrist, reveals that there’s a school of research within public health on how to frighten people, known as “fear appeal”—a euphemism for scaring people to death—which is used often to implement public health measures.  

In an interview by Dr. Joseph Mercola in November, 2020, Dr. Breggin shows the steps used to create fear appeal: 

"First, highlight a threat and make it personal so that people fear for their personal safety. Next, you give people something immediate to do that will set them on the path of cooperating with the plan in its entirety. Examples during the COVID-19 pandemic include not leaving your house, wearing a mask, staying 6 feet apart, closing certain businesses and keeping children home from school. By adding confusion to the mix, you can bring an individual from fear to anxiety—a state of confusion in which you can no longer think logically. In this state, you are more easily manipulated. Eventually, when the fear and anxiety are great enough, desperation sets in, at which point people are willing to do just about anything to get relief."       

The Bahá'ís who inspired this website have been saddened that those who are in favor of the state forcing medical mandates on its citizens, and in the process violating at least a dozen state and federal laws, are unwilling to have a calm adult chat—none of us remember having such a conversation in the last 19 months. Is fear really that powerful?

Breggin states:                                                           

"Anxiety overwhelms us, it makes us stupid, it makes us desperately want somebody to take over. But what we need is somebody who says you don't have anything to fear, the anxiety won't kill you; [someone who] will calm you down and tell you everything's going to be fine, you don't have to be helpless.

But we are getting the exact opposite message from Biden and Fauci ... The pharmaceutical industry and the very wealthy need this fear because they're making a fortune on this fear… getting all their drugs and vaccines ready."  

As Breggin looked more deeply at the whole question of public health, he discovered that it is essentially a totalitarian model. It does not raise issues of collateral damage, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, of liberty, the right of people to die with their boots on, or the American tradition of individuals and their own communities making decisions. It assumes that what public health officials think is true and their directives must be followed without question (Look at the tens of thousands of doctors, nurses, virologists, etc. who have been censored, bullied, and fired from their jobs for having an opinion that differs from the government's narrative.)   

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