House Arrest for ‘the Unvaccinated’

The End of the Austrian Second Republic

This are moving ever-faster with respect to the re-structuring of human societies, mainly driven by politicians’ inept and evil handling of the Coronavirus situation. Austria, once dubbed ‘elysium’ by Pope Paul VI on the occasion of the visit of Austrian president Franz Jonas in 1971, has certainly changed.

Last week, I briefly mentioned the rearing of authoritarianism’s ugly head (see here and here), and while every self-respecting citizen of a self-identifying ‘democracy’ should be absolutely appalled by the language employed by these suit-wearing henchmen, here’s what happened since Chancellor Schallenberg infamously said that ‘[w]e will therefore tighten the reins for the unvaccinated’. (Note the royal ‘we’ here; note further that Schallenberg himself is of ‘aristocratic descent’; if anything, same old, same old, I guess.)

As reported by state broadcaster ORF yesterday, this is what the near future holds for all residents of Austria, citizens (sic) and residents alike (my emphasis):

‘According to Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP), winter and Christmas will be “unpleasant” for the unvaccinated. A lockdown for the unvaccinated is, as it looks, “in all probability unavoidable”, the chancellor said on Thursday. In Upper Austria [one of Austria’s nine federal states, see below], such a lockdown is to come into effect as early as Monday, as Governor Thomas Stelzer (ÖVP) has now announced—the day before he had still ruled it out.

“We are facing a winter and Christmas under 2-G [i.e., only ‘vaccinated’ and ‘recovered’ may venture outside]”, Schallenberg made clear. A lockdown for the unvaccinated is a “very harsh measure”, but obviously necessary. In addition, pressure via controls will be further intensified. But Schallenberg also appealed to personal responsibility, saying it was a matter of one’s own health. He hoped that the “threat” (Drohkulisse) would have an effect.’

Spoken like a true tyrant.

This means: if you’re part of about a third of Austrian residents who, for whatever reason, have elected to forego the ‘offer’—under ‘threats’ by the government—of ‘vaccination’ against Covid-19, you may buy essential goods (groceries, stamps, medication) and go to work in your ‘home office’, but that’s it.

In other words: the Austrian government, openly threatening its people, is involuntarily confining to their homes about a third of the population, and the government does this citing a public health emergency that, according to WHO-sponsored and endorsed research, has an infection fatality rate of

‘probably…less than 0.20% and with appropriate, precise non-pharmacological measures that selectively try to protect high-risk vulnerable populations and settings, the infection fatality rate may be brought even lower.’

(Note that the infection fatality rate of influenza and Covid-19 appear to be roughly the same.)

Be that as it may, the Austrian government would never dare to impose such measures, if a segment of the population wouldn’t actively support these measures. This can be seen in the comment section of virtually any news media outlet, such as this one, taken from the self-identifying left-liberal daily DerStandard:

User ‘DYLAN 10’ (highlighted by the arrow, my emphasis) wrote:

‘You can say what you want: while I am not an ÖVP [Schallenberg’s party] voter, the BK [chancellor] is right. And it must be really unpleasant for the unvaccinated.’

There are hundreds and thousands of comparable statements in these ‘moderated’ comments sections, which suggests that this point of view is endorsed by the editors of the papers.

Let’s do a little thought experiment here and ask a pertinent question: do substitute the word ‘unvaccinated’ with anything else, e.g., ‘migrants’, or ‘Muslims’, or ‘Jews’—would that be ‘hate-speech’?

By the way, speaking of migrants etc., for years now the Austrian government has similarly ‘offered’ recent immigrants what they call ‘values courses’, i.e., mandatory courses on ‘The Values’ prevalent in Austria.

How ironic (sic) is it that the same government that speaks like this to citizens, just a few days ago, had announced this (my emphasis):

‘As stipulated in the government programme, we are implementing the expansion of the values courses for persons granted asylum and subsidiary protection. From 2022, the mandatory values and orientation courses will be extended from one to three days, and instead of 8 hours, 24 hours will be mandatory. Integration is always a two-way process: it is about encouraging and demanding’, said Integration Minister Susanne Raab during a visit to one of the new course formats at the Vienna Integration Centre.

‘The compulsory values courses are an essential building block for successful integration because they teach important prerequisites for life in Austria. These include, for example, the importance of German language skills and education as well as basic values of the Austrian constitution such as human dignity, democratic principles and equality.’

I move to enroll the Austrian government in their own ‘values courses’, perhaps even they learn something about citizenship, civic rights and duties, the rule of law, and, speaking of constitutional law, also about equality under the law.

Austrians have some experience with arbitrary selection of one group of (former) citizens public shaming and all the dreadful misfortunes that may follow from that point onwards, and it’s an unpleasant memory:

[Caption in the German Wikipedia article] ‘Immediately after the Anschluss, Viennese Jews were forced, with the participation of the population, to clean pro-Austrian slogans from the pavements in “cleaning parties” (Reibpartien).’

Curiously, if cognitively supremely dissonant, Chancellor Schallenberg, speaking on the occasion of the anniversary of Reichskristallnacht—i.e., in that very same just-related context—on 9 Nov. 2021, said this:

‘“From March 1938 onwards, blind hatred, envy, arrogance and an anti-Semitism that had been handed down for centuries fell upon our Jewish fellow human beings. Many could only save their bare lives by fleeing. But many did not succeed. Over 64,000 Austrian Jews fell victim to the atrocities of the Nazi regime. They were deported, starved to death in ghettos, shot in forests or bestially murdered and ruined in extermination camps. With these name walls, we snatch their names and their history from oblivion. We are giving them back their identity, their individuality and thus a part of their human dignity”, said Federal Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg at the opening of the Shoah Name Wall Memorial in Vienna’s Ostarrichipark on 9 November. 83 years ago, the November pogroms of 1938 took place on the night of terror from 9 to 10 November.’

Is this still hypocrisy?

I’m afraid we’re talking about something else entirely: tyranny.