Just take the damn sick day, New Zealand!

I know you've come here to get answers. You've come for a plan. You want to know what I propose to do to bring about an end to this madness, this complete clownshow of a Covid-19 Response from the Ardern government.

I hate to disappoint. I can't bring an end to it. But you can. First though, you must understand exactly how we got into this mess. 

How did we get to a place where without any inkling of resistance we gave up our control over our lives, our businesses, our very bodies? How did we surrender all, not to a higher power or to God, but to Government?

You think that Jacinda Ardern's government is trying to save lives with their Covid-19 Public Health Response. They aren't. This isn't about saving lives. If it was, they'd be showing a lot more concern for the livelihoods they are asphyxiating; the businesses being slowly and tortuously strangled into bankruptcy and closure around New Zealand. The mortgages lost, people bankrupted, jobs lost, careers derailed.

If you are honest with yourself, you will realise that the government's mission has never changed from March 2020 when the messaging was more honest and transparent.

This is, and always has been, about "flattening the curve" not "saving lives". This is about making sure that our health system isn't overwhelmed by people entering hospitals and ICUs around the country in the event that an influenza virus sweeps through our country. This is about making sure that no one sees the pathetic state of New Zealand's woefully unprepared and underfunded healthcare system. It's never been about you or me.

And this is about Jacinda Ardern's image on an international stage. It's political theatre, designed to make her look good while she prattles and prances about all over the global stage pretending that she is the saviour of her people.

It's all deteriorated into a very black comedy now though. We are in the final act now, writhing in agony and having to watch her as she continues to fiddle on while around us businesses are burning and lives are shattered.

Tens of thousands have lost their jobs. We are on the way to fifteen thousand businesses gone to the wall. And for what? To save our health system from being exposed as unprepared and inadequate to cope with a sudden influx of patients suffering from respiratory and pulmonary illness, most of whom suffer underlying conditions that have been known about and documented in our national health records for years. Many of whom would likely have died in the next few years given infection from any annual influenza virus.

Even if it transpires that Covid-19 is deadlier than any of the many virii we have seen in recent history, we could have been prepared. We would have been able to deal with this if our government had paid attention and done it's job instead of using Covid-19 as a political tool.

As the Labour government squandered billions of borrowed dollars on politically motivated pet projects and funding grants for ideological and identity-based minority groups, no one dared speak up and ask the burning question: "Why is that money not being used to shore up the health system to cope with an emergency that we know may eventually come for us?"

No one believes that Covid-19 isn't real. It's real, just not as overwhelming as we are being told. Every year historically, a million New Zealanders are infected with influenza viruses. Many are hospitalised, and hundreds die. We don't declare a State of National Emergency, we don't implement Public Response Health Orders under urgency, we don't force the closure of businesses and bring about the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

Over the last year we haven't had any cases of influenza virus in New Zealand if the health records are to be believed. That's an impossibility as most doctors will tell you. Impossible. Influenza is always winding its way through the population. In and out, year round, but especially over winter. Where has influenza gone? Did it take a vacation overseas? No. It's been right here with us all the time. We've just pretended it was something else.

And how did we let this come to pass? Truth be told, it's not entirely the government's fault. We were complicit.

I watched a movie today. British. The hero is paradoxically also the villain. He is a victim of a facist state, one he intends to overthrow. The state has held the people in fear for years, afraid to step beyond the borders and boundaries granted to them by their overlords. In order to break free, first they must overcome their fears. Most of their fears are in their own minds. They are captives of their own inability to simply stand as one united front and pour out into the streets to clamber over the barriers that in the face of sheer revolt are of no value in restraining them. If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend you watch V for Vendetta. Rent it on YouTube. It's an insight into where we are today, as you are reading this.

The one lesson we must learn is that we must be prepared to sacrifice ourselves to truly be free. You will never fight oppression without risk.

Clearly the Labour government is unprepared and thus unable to get us out of this mess they threw us headlong  into. We cannot rely on them to spare us further grief and throw us a life-raft. No one is coming to save us. We have to save ourselves.

Teachers and healthcare workers around the country are being bombarded with emails from their employers, under advice from the regulatory bodies that control their sectors, telling them that they must immediately disclose their vaccination status and if they remain unvaccinated then under government "mandate" they must prepare to lose their jobs without redundancy settlement. Thousands of these workers do not wish to be vaccinated, for reasons which quite rightfully they are not required to disclose. They are preparing to start losing their jobs from the 30th of October. Thousands will be unemployed.

But a mandate is not a law. The government, despite advising 12 days ago that it "intended to" mandate vaccination for these workers, has not done so. It has not enacted any Amendment to the Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Order 2021.

Auckland remains under lockdown levels that prevent businesses from opening to a capacity that will enable them to generate pre-lockdown income. Hamilton businesses are suffering the same fate. Social distancing and masking mandates, along with closure measures for some of them, mean that those businesses will continue to suffer ongoing losses until such time as they can no longer keep themselves afloat. They will close and become just another casualty of poor government planning and a failure to take into account the destruction being wrought upon the lives of everyday New Zealanders.

I am of the opinion that it is past time to leave the planning up to Ardern's government and her Ministers. They have exposed their inabilities to live up to such trust, and made it clear that they are prepared to exact a much heavier price than the people they serve are willing to pay.

It is long past due that we must take the initiative and simply take back what they are seemingly so hesitant to offer. Our freedom. Our lives. Our businesses. Our jobs. Our communities. Our churches. Our sports. Our travel. Our Christmas.

Just take a sick day.

Teachers, healthcare workers, nurses, doctors, preschools, truck drivers, bus drivers, taxi drivers, retail assistants, security guards, receptionists, everyone. Just take a sick day. Take a mental health day, and go to the park. Take a picnic lunch, and go to the park. No work. Not today.

What are they going to do? Arrest you all? So the flattened curve of the Health system becomes the overrun of the Justice system? So it clogs Courts for a few years? No, I don't think so. What it will do is send a very clear message to Ardern's people that she is losing this battle, and needs to stop it now to save face.

I can hear the excuses not to already. "But, what about my patients? They need me.", "But, what about the children? Who will look after them?", "But, what about my boss? I don't want to let them down." That, right there, is why your freedom remains an unattainable dream. They will survive for one day. Stop martyring yourself for other people.

Disobedience to tyranny is going to be the difference for tens of thousands of people, and may well shape your immediate future New Zealand. What are you prepared to risk?

Take the first step. Step out. Stand up. Say No.