Meet Your American Social Credit System

A view of part of the crowd protesting against mandatory vaccinations and mask mandates at a rally at the State Capitol grounds in Lansing, Mich., on Aug. 6, 2021. Steven Kovac/Epoch Times

Commentary

From social media canceling to national vaccine mandates, an unforgiving and punitive social credit system is emerging in America.

As I wrote about in my previous article, under the guise of “medical security” from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, the West is looking more like China every day. We are, by either political mandate or court order, relinquishing our rights in the name of medical safety.

Recall that the CCP gained the technological capabilities—from facial recognition, to cameras, recording devices, GPS locators and other items—to create a digital surveillance system to monitor, track, identify, arrest, detain, and dispose of those individuals who may or could possibly pose a threat to the Party. China’s social credit system is advanced and getting more entrenched across the country every day.

The Path to Oppression

As a result, China’s citizens are virtual prisoners in their own country. Under the watchful and wrathful eye of the communist state, people have their bank accounts blocked, their credit cards frozen, their employment ended—all due to a careless tweet, an unguarded social media post, or even just reading the wrong thing on the internet.

But the consequences go even further than that. Those with insufficient social credit scores may find themselves taken off a train platform, or even a street corner, and hustled into a van, courtesy of state security henchman, and sent to a prison camp. Sounds like a bad movie, but sadly, it’s an absolute reality in China.

That brings us to America’s emerging social credit system, where the wrong thinking can get you canceled.

Social Credit System: China’s Biggest Export

As Americans, we regard the CCP’s oppressive society with righteous condemnation. At least, some of us do, and rightly so.

But others don’t see it that way at all. In fact, many Americans view the idea of canceling their fellow citizens who hold traditional ideas of morality, patriotism, and conservative political ideologies as normal, just and good.

And that’s just the beginning of the social credit system that seems to be rapidly developing here in the United States. There are many more aspects to it than one may realize, but the driving force is the CCP virus pandemic and the vaccination campaign that came out of it. Several concurrent manifestations have attached themselves to that campaign.

One is the “woke” or “cancel culture” ideology that’s now found throughout our media, academia, and even in the public and private sectors of our economy. This pervasive cultural movement doesn’t tolerate debate or dissent, but rather, demands ideological uniformity in all societal quarters. The traditional American value of the free exchange of ideas has been consumed by virtue signaling of the woke and the moral condemnation of the rest of us.

The mainstream media, for example, seems no longer interested in reporting the news, but instead, prefers to keep the American people divided. To do this, it publicly shames unvaccinated citizens. And of course, as mentioned in my prior article, the social media tech giants routinely prevent the free expression of ideas, particularly those that counter the woke political and cultural agenda, via “fact checkers.” Outright censorship and de-platforming of sites supporting traditional values or conservative ideas has also become the norm.

A smartphone in hand displaying the word "censored" in front of a blurred Facebook logo. Klevo/Shutterstock

But that’s not all—not by a long shot.

Rather than supporting independent thought, universities are firing professors who exercise their constitutional right to not take an experimental and possibly risky vaccine. They’re also banning or fining unvaccinated students.

Governors and mayors are mandating proof of vaccination and even masks for businesses within their jurisdictions. And in the health care sphere, even hospital workers—nurses and hospital workers who worked through the worst of the pandemic—are being fired for refusing the vaccine. Even federal authorities are suggesting suspending travel rights for the unvaccinated, which of course, is unconstitutional.

What could possibly bring about such broad and consistent social conditioning and the wholesale disposal of our constitutional rights? Is it just a coincidence of coincidences? Or a coordinated attempt to transform America into an obedient and oppressed society without rights or liberties?

It really doesn’t matter.

Backdoor Vaccine Compliance Enforcement

For example, earlier this year, the possibility of vaccine mandates was not an official policy of the federal government. Both Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical adviser to the president, and the Biden administration told us that no such policy was under consideration, workable, or even legal.

And yet today, it’s happening. Vaccine compliance is being mandated via the White House directing private employers with 100 employees or more to require CCP virus vaccination from all workers or face the possibility of losing their jobs. In short, the federal government is getting the private sector to enforce an unconstitutional policy that it has no legal authority to enforce.

Vaccine passports are likely to be required in the very near future.

The upshot is that our inalienable rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution have been downgraded and redefined as privileges that can be taken away, and most certainly are being diluted across the board. Even though the experimental vaccines have proven to be less safe and less effective than promised, they have provided the political and moral cover to strip us of our rights.

Does anyone care to argue that our rights to privacy, to freedom of speech, to free assembly, of conducting lawful businesses and earning a living are still vibrant and intact?

Does anyone believe that they will be restored by the same political and social forces that are taking them away?

The tragic irony is that the CCP created their social credit system on surveillance technology bought or stolen from America and marketed it as “smart city” technology to other authoritarian regimes around the world.

Apparently, America bought the deluxe package.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.