Van Morrison, Handfuls of Rockers, Resist COVID19 Crackdowns In Favor Of Liberty

P. Gardner Goldsmith | August 28, 2020
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Irish rock legend Van Morrison turns 75 at the end of the month, and, as one of the grandmasters of the style, he is showing many pantywaist rock n’ troll musicians what has fueled rock from the start.

As The Irish Sun reports, Morrison is standing up for liberty.

He’s playing a series of concerts in England, and sounding the alarm to fellow musicians to stand up for their rights of free association and to call out the falsity of the government-pushed COVID19 stats. His first three concerts in England will be held at venues in Newcastle and London that conform to the government “social distancing” mandates, but he wants folks to know that these forays onto the stage are just the beginning.

He is planning many more, full-sized, gigs, and he is calling on other musicians to recover the rights that politicians and their armed, tax-fed police have suppressed.

Writes Aoife Finneran, for the Irish Sun:

He has now called on fellow musicians, singers, writers, producers, promoters and others in the industry to join the campaign, saying: ‘fight with me.’ He fumed: ‘Come forward, stand up, fight the pseudo-science and speak up.’

The importance of this cannot be overstated.

The insane political violation of fundamental human rights to threaten people with fines, physical apprehension, arrest, jail, and possible prosecution – and the cowed compliance of some citizens -- are more than Orwellian, they are surreal. Not only are the fatality rates of COVID19 similar to those of the seasonal flu – meaning that governments currently engaging in “COVID-Crackdowns” could engage in and act on similar threats against free association and commerce any time a flu arises -- the fundamental logic and ethics of free will and freedom of association dictate that anyone attending or playing at such a concert does so without any form of compulsion.

This is precisely the opposite of the way the state operates. The state only can operate by compulsion and threat. Society is voluntary. The state is involuntary. Since days prior to the Enlightenment, people have understood that the social realm is voluntarily created by people making their own decisions, while the actions of the state are imposed – that the state is, by definition, antisocial.

And what Van Morrison says about musicians and music venues can be applied to owners of, workers in, and visitors to dining establishments, stores, movie theatres, bowling alleys, sports clubs, and all private places of commerce and free will. They have the right to associate with one another without “distancing” mandates or other restrictions.

This is not a sign of compliance or acceptance of the current state of affairs, this is to get my band up and running and out of the doldrums… This is also not the answer going forward. We need to be playing to full capacity audiences going forward.

Perhaps some folks need this reminder from one of the older figures of rock and roll. Perhaps they need to listen to Iggy and the Stooges’ explosive, “I Got A Right,” and hear Iggy inform those who would crush his liberty, “Anytime I want, I got a right to move – no matter what they say.”

Because it seems as if only a select few get it. People like Van Morrison, like those who, two weeks ago, played the huge Buffalo Chip Music Festival as part of the even bigger Sturgis, South Dakota, motorcycle rally

People like the liberty-loving, constitutionally-aware Reverend Horton Heat and his band, who not only took their turn on stage in Sturgis along with Buckcherry, Quiet Riot, Smashmouth, 38 Special, Saving Abel, Night Ranger, Trapt, and more, but who are openly defying the mental conditioning, deception, and authoritarianism of politicians in COVID-Crackdown America.

The Reverend, aka Jim Heath, has, flat-out, told the politicians and sheeple that he and the band will NOT cancel shows. They will not relinquish their liberty.

Reported Vulture in the early days of this con-game crackdown:

The Reverend Horton Heat has declared that they will not be canceling any performances, simply because ‘they can’t stop rock and roll.’ Lead singer Jim Heath announced the decision to keep rocking and rolling on the band’s Facebook page, writing that anyone who might be wary of gathering in large groups was in danger of becoming ‘sheeple to authoritarian government.’

Amen.

It’s important to acknowledge that the powerhouse American “Psychobilly” rock “Reverend” and the Irish rocker Van Morrison are defending human liberty with more gusto, and more explicitly, than the Pope of the Catholic Church and most US politicians who have sworn oaths to “protect and defend the US Constitution.”

The truth is found in rebellion against those who would threaten free association. And this spirit animates many who aren’t as high-profile as musicians. It burns strong and unstoppable in the veins of churchgoers, food pantry volunteers who defy government lockdowns, store owners, and in the hearts of restaurateurs like Neil Rodgers, owner of Ike’s Korner Grille, in Spartanburg County, SC., who, as Nolan Blair reports for WYFF, says he is not making his employees or customers wear masks.

It’s about freedom, it's timeless, and it goes deeper than todays insane COVID Crackdowns. It’s about collectivism versus independent thought and free will. Market transactions are merely manifestations of that free will, and any artificial government imposition over free market transactions is undeniably immoral. At a music venue, at a restaurant, in a church, all people who are working or volunteering or visiting are doing so voluntarily. No one is forcing them to be there. Property owners, chefs, and musicians aren’t kidnapping customers or employees, and it’s extremely important to recognize that the same mindset that unethically and unconstitutionally orders cafes and bars and music halls to close or “socially distance” or mandate masks for employees or patrons “for their own protection” is the evil that bans smoking in restaurants and claims that such authoritarianism is “for the other people’s good.”

The key is to understand that private property and private choice go hand in hand. People accept risks, jobs, opportunities, and chances based on their own free will. They attach prices to risk and benefit and let others see how they've exercised their values. And only by respecting the freedom of others can one ask for others to respect our own liberty. Once the Pandora’s Box to politicians telling others how to run their businesses has been opened, rather than people telling the politicians to pound sand and open their own businesses if they don’t like how others associate – once that’s occurred, liberty is sacrificed on the alter of illusory “protection”.

No one forces people to work at a business, or play at a hall, or eat at a diner, or listen to a band.

Van Morrison gets it. Iggy gets it. The Reverend gets it.

We have a right.

No matter what the politicians say.

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