Dr Graham Lyons: Fighter Against the Covid New World Order! By Paul Walker
The ABC.net.au, did a reasonable job covering the position of Adelaide scientist, and anti-vax champion, Dr Graham Lyons. Dr Lyons has spoken at various rallies, and apparently is facing charges for refusing to be Covid tested, disputing the accuracy of the test, the morality and legality of tests, tracing and lockdowns and even the reality of the pandemic! He actually got to mention that the whole scam is about bringing in a world government. He says that he is fighting the good fight, because he does not want his granddaughter growing up in a “techno-fascist dystopia." Impressive courage, indeed.
“Graham Lyons does not think the COVID-19 pandemic is real, and he is willing to go to jail to prove it.
Key points:
- Experts say there's been a rise in people spreading anti-government ideology online
- Researchers have noticed growth in fringe legal and sovereign citizen movements in Australia
- COVID-19 restrictions have increased interest in those types of groups
The experienced agricultural scientist, whose career includes a PhD in the field of micronutrients, is facing potential prosecution for failing to take COVID-19 tests.
He has also refused to wear a mask and will not sign-in to businesses he visits.
"The government has no right to track the citizenry like that," he told the ABC.
"I stand up against it, I don't acquiesce to that and if it gets me into jail, so be it.
"I am putting everything I've got into this because I don't want my little granddaughter growing up in a techno-fascist dystopia."
Dr Lyons's work relates to agriculture in public health — he is not a medical specialist — but he said he had nevertheless concluded that vaccination was ineffective and, like many others opposed to COVID-19 controls, believed the pandemic was a front for organisations and individuals advancing a "globalist agenda to institute a world government".
"The whole thing is fraudulent," he said.
"You've got a global cabal behind this.
"I call them 'global parasites' who think they own the world and everyone else should pay obeisance to them."
Dr Lyons believes the same group has previously made major attempts to control and change society, but that COVID-19 is their biggest challenge to his way of life, one that must be resisted.
"This is the big one. We've got to win this, otherwise we're f****d," he said.
Dr Lyons has a job, pays tax, and said he was opposed to violence.
He said he was not part of any organised group.
But other people with similar beliefs have been prepared to go much further and have been organising via the internet.
Last month, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) executed six search warrants in three states to disrupt a group that was meeting to discuss overthrowing the government and arresting politicians and bureaucrats.
The AFP said there was no evidence they had the capacity to carry out violent acts, but it told the ABC such groups had the potential to cause significant problems.
"Police are concerned when these beliefs manifest into criminal or violent acts," the AFP said.
"In relation to ideologically motivated violent extremism, we are witnessing the number of individuals who adhere to this ideology continue to increase and spread across the country.
"We are always concerned about groups that seek to undertake activities that would endanger the safety of the community. We work with our intelligence partners to identify criminality or threats to public safety, and act accordingly."
The group identified by the AFP was part of a loose movement of people claiming the government is corrupt and illegitimate, using a range of legal-sounding arguments, like "common law" or calling themselves "sovereign citizens", to justify their views.
'Pushing people into our open arms'
Some people have formed organised groups to discuss alternative governments.
Mike Holt is the convenor and "elected sheriff" of one "common law" group on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.
"This is a spiritual movement more than anything else," he told the ABC.
"Common law is the law of man, of God, of the universe, so it's a natural law."
The Vietnam veteran, a retired businessman, said the movement was non-violent and described the people raided by the AFP as "power-hungry nutcases".
"They had nothing to do with us," he said.
"We are not trying to remove the government, we are making them inconsequential.
"We are not doing anything illegal, we are certainly not going out there to start an insurrection."
Mr Holt said he had become interested in "common law" theories after Julia Gillard replaced Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister in 2010.
He said the basis for the movement was the meeting of like-minded people to form assemblies that sign charters and elect sheriffs, pass by-laws and convene common law courts.
"We have the same powers as any other government but we're a local government, so people like this idea because it empowers them to take back control of their lives," he said.
Mr Holt said COVID-19 restrictions have increased interest in the group's activities.
"There's been a lot of people getting in touch asking how they can start an assembly, what they can do to empower themselves and how do we stop the attacks on their rights and freedoms by the government," he said.
"They're pushing people into our open arms and we're quite happy to help them."
Alternative legal movements have existed for a long time in the United States, but researchers have recently noticed a sharp growth in activity in Australia.
"The people who were arrested recently are a signal of big things coming up — that is, undermining legitimate liberal democracy and its authority, a rejection of what we count as government," said Mark Balnaves, an adjunct research fellow at Notre Dame University.
Dr Balnaves investigates the role of social media in spreading anti-government ideology, like the "sovereign citizen" movement in which people claim to be exempt from laws they disagree with.
"Two, three years ago in Australia there was no conversation on this," he said.
"[On] sovereign citizens you might have 10-20 posts, now you'll have something like 40,000 interactions in Australia online about the topic.
"It's entered the lexicon, it's part of the language and that's a problem.
"People are taking the core element of rejection of authority and using it in their lives."
The online ecosystem for anti-COVID, "sovereign citizen" and alternative legal groups regularly includes anti-vaccination groups, "wellness" enthusiasts and religious objectors, along with white nationalists, people opposed to progressive social change, and believers in the US-based QAnon conspiracy.
"A couple of years ago the NSW Police Force picked it up and they estimated it was a few hundred people as sovereign citizens," Dr Balnaves said.
"Now you've got a range of people deploying the same tactics, whether they're from anti-vaccination [groups] – and COVID makes a big difference here – and more recently you've got sovereign citizen-allied people clogging up courts, from lower courts to appeals courts."
While the movement has been associated with violence in the United States, in Australia the only conflict seen so far has been protesters clashing with police at anti-lockdown rallies.”
Wow, things are sure moving along quickly now in a final race to the finish line. Notice the assumption implicit here in the academic’s work, that the government is correct, the dissents wrong, so that the truth claims are not evaluated, only the activates looked at sociologically and explained causally. Now, would that same principle be applied to other social entities, like say, the present government of Afghanistan? Probably not, since that government is contrary to the liberal/Left progressive ideas of academia, the ground rules by which the system works. Thus, all research and commentary operates against its own theoretical background, creating its own implicit biases.
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