Learned Helplessness in The Liberty Movement

"Abandon All hope, Ye Who Enter."

"Abandon All hope, Ye Who Enter."

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter." This is the quote engraved above the gate entering hell in Dante Alighieri’s Medieval work of art, the Divine Comedy. Dante, guided by Virgil, traverses through hell, and purgatory, and then finally he is led by Beatrice through heaven. We won’t concern ourselves here with Purgatory or Paradiso, our focus will be on the Inferno. Specifically, the prison of the mind that the liberty movement seems entrained in, that of course is the abandonment of all hope.

Arguably it is the abandonment of hope that is the last act of free will for those entering the inferno. Once past that gate, the inhabitants are no longer benefited by the gift of free will. Instead, they are acting out the consequences ordained for them after the bad choices made in this world. In a sense, the abandonment of hope is an example of ‘learned helplessness’.  

What exactly is learned helplessness?

Humans have likely been aware of this phenomenon for thousands of years. After all, human nature hasn’t really changed over the millennia. It was, however, in 1967 when the term was first used by researchers. Social psychologists first used the term ‘learned helplessness’ when conducting research with dogs. In these less than humane experiments, researchers determined that when dogs were given an electric shock and an avenue to escape the shock, the dogs quickly learned to escape the shock immediately with further conditioning. Researchers also learned that when dogs were hit with a shock, but were provided either no avenue for escape, or a very difficult avenue for escape, the dogs developed what they termed ‘learned helplessness’. Over time, instead of finding and utilizing means of escape, the dogs just endured the pain. Even when the dogs had avenues of escape available to them, they did not act on these options and instead endured the shock. It was therefore concluded that when the dogs were provided with an inescapable shock, over time they developed ‘learned helplessness’.

In 1976 researchers developed some theories to explain this phenomenon. These theories include issues with motivation, cognition, and emotions. The dogs appeared to develop a decrease in motivation to avoid the shocks in the future even when solutions were available, i.e. confronted with escapable shocks. ‘Learned helplessness’ was observed in cats, rats, mice, birds, primates, fish, and man. It should be noted that it was difficult to produce in rats. The motivational deficits were produced in multiple species, including man, and may be a general effect. Thus, the researchers concluded that “uncontrollable events undermine the motivation to initiate voluntary responses to control future events.”

Cognitive interference appears to create difficulty learning, even when subsequent responses were successful. Early exposure to inescapable aversive stimuli appears to retard the perception of control. For instance, when a tone and a shock are presented randomly a helpless point of view is learned:

A helplessness point of view holds that men and animals actively learn that responses and outcomes are independent of each other, and one way the learning is manifested is by the difficulty they later have learning that the response produces the outcome when it does. Merely substitute shock for outcome and tone for response. This suggests that organisms should also actively learn when a tone and shock are independent and that organisms show this by having trouble learning later that the tone is followed by the shock when it actually is.   

In the future, even when the subjects discovered the proper response and outcome, they had difficulty learning the two events as a cause and effect. They did not properly reproduce the response and outcome in the future. Emotional disturbances seem to be an obvious reaction to trauma in the experiments. These emotional disturbances were more prevalent with those that received the uncontrollable trauma than those that received controllable trauma.

Keep in mind, there is always another explanation. I can come up with several off the top of my head. I will only share this one. I think that in addition to the above explanations, an attachment to the pain may develop in some cases, and an ensuing identification with it, which also may impede the recognition of, or seeking out of solutions.

In a nutshell, ‘learned helplessness’ is acquired when confronted with inescapable pain or trauma, and over time one develops or learns that they are not capable of avoiding future pain, trauma, or even defeats, and they learn to ignore or discount potential solutions.

None of the above is new. The theory of ‘learned helplessness’ has been around for decades. This primer on it is relevant for our discussion on learned helplessness in the liberty movement. Even prior to 2020, there have been decades of conditioning of learned helplessness via mass media. Framing issues and events with predetermined outcomes, creating problems and then solutions that deliberately create more problems, for instance, are all methods to accomplish ‘leaned helplessness’.   

Think of the endless dog and pony show where Republicans seek to stop the problem created by Democrats, only to do nothing when in office, or come up with an excuse about why they can’t do anything. The message is that the pain is inescapable.

Since 2020 and the covid plandemic, the game has been stepped up. In fact, the continuous contradictions and lack of discernable logic of masking, standing 6 feet apart, lock downs, and coerced and forced bioweapon injections, fit well within the framework of creating ‘learned helplessness’. The relationship between logical responses and outcomes were severed. Massive trauma was imposed on the whole population. For many this continues with the continued disease and disability resulting from the COVID-19 injections. Fraudulent computer elections, and all the other insanity associated with the Great Reset, contribute to the inescapable pain required to create ‘learned helplessness’ many are being programmed to accept.

While there are many people actively resisting the growing totalitarianism, countless more are sitting on the sidelines and not doing anything. Often, some of these people invalidate any and all efforts to solve the problem. For example, I got the first ‘Ban the Jab’ resolution passed at a county Republican Party in Florida in February of 2023. Since then, we managed to get 10 county parties in Florida to pass such resolutions as well as county parties in Idaho, Oregon, South Carolina, Arizona, and North Carolina. I recently reached out to Dan Schultz and asked him to submit the resolution in Arizona. He submitted the resolution and the Arizona Republican Party passed it with over 95% of the vote and declared COVID-19 injections biological and technological weapons.  

The idea behind the resolutions is to expose the crimes and pressure politicians. Also, to persuade all the medical doctors that speak on this issue to stop dancing around the fact that the COVID 19 injections are biological weapons of mass destruction. We need more county and state parties to help with this and pass this resolution. While most of the responses to ban the jab resolutions have been positive, there are some that say it is a waste of time, nothing will happen, and so on. Or they may say where was this a year ago? My response is where were you a year ago and why weren’t you helping? Or what are you doing right that is effective at moving the needle?

I am also involved in litigation to try and force Governor DeSantis to ban the jab in Florida. Most of the responses to this litigation have been positive as well. Still, there are plenty that say it is a waste of time, the courts are corrupt, and so on. I have to ask why aren’t there at least a hundred legal actions in every state trying to get these biological and technological weapons of mass destruction off the market?

Some people have even gone further into the phenomena of ‘learned helplessness’ and essentially say nothing can be done, it is too late, or they will cite the PREP Act, or the EUA, or the DOD, or some other law or agency, claiming these laws or agencies somehow have the authority to circumvent the U.S. Constitution. Interesting, I see no emergency powers clause in the U.S. Constitution. There were people in the past saying that Pfizer could not be sued. Well, Pfizer violated their contracts by not providing a safe and effective product, and fraud negates any liability shield, as evidenced by the current litigation as Texas is suing Pfizer.

Marbury v. Madison is relevant case law. Chief Justice Marshal stated, “legislation repugnant to the Constitution is void”. He went on to say that Judges take an oath to support the Constitution and that they can’t look at the law and ignore the Constitution. This case set the legal precedent for judicial review. The Supreme Court literally ruled a law passed by the Congress and signed by the President as unconstitutional. This precedent has never been challenged. Consider the fact that James Madison, a combat veteran of the American Revolution, who was present at the Battle of Trenton, which was the turning point of the American Revolution, and was in fact the father of the U.S. Constitution, as President of the United States, accepted the verdict, and did not challenge it. I guess if the whole government becomes repugnant to the Constitution, then there is always paragraph two of the Declaration of Independence…

Although, I should point out that I hear many people throwing up their hands and saying nothing can be done short of exercising their rights recognized under paragraph two. My suspicion is that if these people are too helpless to do anything and are sitting on the sidelines now, they will likely be sitting on the sidelines if it ever came to that.

There are necessary steps in escalation required as all legitimate means of expression and recourse must be exhausted first. Stated differently, we need to hit them eight ways sideways until they break.

Then there is the shiny object syndrome. This is when someone makes an advance on an issue or brings attention to an issue and people come along and say no that is not what is important, this is the issue that you need to focus on, i.e., my shiny object is what you should be focusing on. Believe it or not, some of us can focus on multiple issues at once. A long time ago, a wise man once said to me that if someone tells you their way is the only way, grab your wallet and run.

These are just a few examples that I have dealt with. I know that many other activists experience similar issues. There are countless other examples of ‘learned helplessness’ in the liberty movement. There are solutions available. If you can’t see or find any, create one, and run with it. Sitting on the sidelines is not a solution. I am not advocating false hope. Instead, I am advocating action and engagement of some form. There is no acceptable explanation to explain why there isn’t a stampede of political, civil, and legal action to stop this madness, other than ‘learned helplessness’, and that is unacceptable.  

If you choose to do nothing, but abandon all hope, recognize that is the last act of free will you can choose to do. After that, you are in a hell of your own creation.