下面是一美國民主黨作者(他是有名的肯尼迪家屬成員，官二代)在他的新書的前言裡的一段話：
I wrote this book to help Americans—and citizens across the globe—understand the historical underpinnings of the bewildering cataclysm that began in 2020. In that single annus horribilis, liberal democracy effectively collapsed worldwide. The very governmental health regulators, social media eminences, and media companies that idealistic populations relied upon as champions of freedom, health, democracy, civil rights, and evidence-based public policy seemed to collectively pivot in a lockstep assault against free speech and personal freedoms.
Suddenly, those trusted institutions seemed to be acting in concert to generate fear, promote obedience, discourage critical thinking, and herd seven billion people to march to a single tune, culminating in mass public health experiments with a novel, shoddily tested and improperly licensed technology so risky that manufacturers refused to produce it unless every government on Earth shielded them from liability.
Across Western nations, shell-shocked citizens experienced all the well-worn tactics of rising totalitarianism—mass propaganda and censorship, the orchestrated promotion of terror, the manipulation of science, the suppression of debate, the vilification of dissent, and use of force to prevent protest. Conscientious objectors who resisted these unwanted, experimental, zero-liability medical interventions faced orchestrated gaslighting, marginalization, and scapegoating.
American lives and livelihoods were shattered by a bewildering array of draconian diktats imposed without legislative approval or judicial review, risk assessment, or scientific citation. So-called Emergency Orders closed our businesses, schools and churches, made unprecedented intrusions into privacy, and disrupted our most treasured social and family relationships. Citizens the world over were ordered to stay in their homes.
我用這段話，向大家介紹這本書。這本書還收集了許多值得注意的事實。雖然，我才開了個頭，就覺得一定要把這本書看完。
病毒蔓延，是災難，是緊急情況。但是以情況緊急往往只是為名，政府和權威人士的行為卻有其他目的。所以他們之所以會遭到一些人士的反對（其實，在美國總有不同的聲音，不稀奇），除了表面上的明顯的理由以外，還有桌子底下的，比較不能直接告訴大衆的理由，這在上面的一小段裡說得很明白。
緊急情況之緊急，該由誰來定義？總統和州長根據憲法有這個權力。但是，緊急狀態的宣布得是否合適，措施是否到位，應該由大多數人民來評說。
電視新聞裡看到美國以外的一些地方的三番五复地全員測試，人們的正常生活被打斷。是這樣做好？還是美國或歐洲的做法比較合適？用這四個字再合適不過了：見仁見智。
我以前說過生命和自由之間要有一個為大多數人同意的平衡點。在緊急情況下，這個平衡點的選擇尤其重要。一個地方的做法只要能受到當地多數人的真心擁護，那我看就是好的決定。但是，如果大多數人認為不值得，那就是另一回事了。
無論如何，任意地定義和宣布緊急狀況，以假消息，被誇大的消息，讓大多數人民感到生命受到了威脅，卻是歷來統治者推行專制制度的震耳欲聾的開場鑼。
要記得這種歷史經驗。
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