“Misinformation.” 

“Disinformation.” 

Twitter and Facebook officials banning people. 

Hiding or “shadow banning” selective posts on social media. 

The White House and federal agencies demanding that social media platforms and newspapers ban or “shadow ban” selective posters or selective comments, or add “community notes” to “correct misinformation.”

The deaths were heart-breaking — including senior citizens directed to move into nursing homes. Separated from family, from grandkids. A tragically bad, cruel idea. The gut-wrenching stories of the countless businesses that closed and never re-opened, or could never recover — and the thousands, if not millions, who lost jobs. The vacant storefronts on Main Street, in strip malls and mega malls stand as monuments to foolishness.

Many families and many communities will never be the same.  That is tragic and scarring.

Yet in some ways, five years after Anthony Fauci’s “two weeks to flatten the curve,” the First Amendment may be the long-term victim of Covid policy.

It is a story of government overreach. Governing by “experts” and mandates. Crushing constitutional rights. Ignoring our “unalienable rights” — those endowed by our Creator. “Experts” and politicians making up standards, and angrily defending them — shouting at, shaming, and silencing anyone who questioned them.

“Experts” and bureaucrats that we never heard of, whom we did not elect, who were not accountable to voters, and were rarely challenged by legacy media, told many Americans that our jobs were “not essential.” We had to stay home. And so did our children. 

“Experts,” bureaucrats and politicians removed basketball nets, wrapped playground slides in police tape, and blocked off bike paths and skateboard parks.

They closed schools, community centers, and daycares — yet many parents’ jobs were “essential,” so their children sat home alone for hours and hours.

They set up hotlines to encourage us to “rat out” our neighbors who dared to walk their dogs, invite neighbors to sit on their porch, or allow their kids to play with friends in their yard. 

Five years later, I feel the anger as I recall it all — as more and more of the insanity comes back to me. 

Yet, how they flagrantly, openly, and militantly ignored the First Amendment is still in a category all by itself.

What they did to our parents, our economy, our mental health — and our children — is unforgivable. Most still won’t apologize, or pledge never to do it again.

Others write circumspect columns, or publish “reports” now that the “evidence” shows that locking people up for months is bad; that keeping children away from school impedes and harms their mental and physical health and their academics; that the economy was unnecessarily harmed; that putting sick or immune-compromised people in the 80’s and 90’s into nursing homes was insane; that forcing healthy people — especially those under 40 — to get vaccines was wrong; that firing cops, nurses and soldiers for not getting vaccinated was cruel; and that mandating masks was ineffective at best, and harmful at worst.

Experts!

Yet, as you read this column and all the insanity imposed on us — often by bureaucrats and “experts” — and you think through how your life, your family’s life, your income; the stores that no longer exist in your community; your children’s mental or physical health or their academic struggles, or the countless emotions that come forward in your mind as you think about 2020, and 2021 and the mask mandates, and vaccine mandates that lasted into 2022 — as you recall all of that, never forget something else:

Fauci, the “experts” and the Biden White House — and countless governors and health directors — threatened and pressured Facebook, Twitter, the New York Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, etc., to silence us.

Literally. And almost every one of the major social and legacy media complied.

They canceled accounts of the famous — reporters, scientists, and doctors — and they “shadow banned” or suspended countless private citizens. Anyone who didn’t dutifully, faithfully and entirely echo the indoctrination being espoused by the “experts.”

Anyone suggesting that “herd immunity” should be an alternative approach — i.e., allowing healthy adults to have the option of interacting with one another to build up resistance — was silenced. Anyone suggesting that schools should re-open was shouted at and shamed. School board members yelled at moms: “Do you want your kids to die?!” (Never mind that by April or May, Catholic and Jewish Day Schools — among others — largely reopened, and ambulances were not rushing to those schools.)

Anyone suggesting that people should have the option to go back to work or that small businesses were being harmed was silenced or shamed, accused of wanting “blood money.” (Recall that Walmart was open, but your neighborhood clothes store or appliance shop wasn’t.)

This is not a debate about whether a private business — like CBS or Facebook — has a right to publish, broadcast or report whatever it chooses. 

But when the White House and its minions in agencies — when the esteemed Dr. Anthony Fauci — pressure the media not to print stories questioning the lockdowns, mandates, masks and vaccines, and they all dutifully comply by canceling accounts and hiding posts; it’s a whole different story.

It’s called fascism.

The government was violating our First Amendment rights  —to speak, to assemble, and “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” And they forced the major media outlets to do the same.

This was the launching of the Orwellian terms of “misinformation” and “disinformation.” Anyone questioning the scope or duration of any mandate, or writing about commonsense alternatives, about mental health, or small businesses, that maybe “six feet apart” had no scientific basis had their columns, posts and tweets struck down, hidden, or labeled as “misinformation!”

It was Orwell’s “1984” in real life. Soviet, dictatorial government.

The powerful demanded it. The media complied. And far, far too many Americans supported it or tolerated it. We must never forget. We must teach our children. We must never, ever be silenced.

Covid policies took lives, crushed businesses and set-back our children. Let’s throw away “misinformation” and “disinformation” like all those worthless masks.

The First Amendment must never be ignored again.

Guy Ciarrocchi — the former CEO of the Chester County Chamber for eight years, until he resigned to speak out against the madness and run for Congress — is a Senior Fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation. He writes for Broad + Liberty and RealClear Pennsylvania. Follow Guy @PASuburbsGuy.