Arthur Kemp's Blog

UK: Illegitimate Minority Regime Takes Power

The distortions of “democracy” have reachedwhat might be an all-time apogee with the 2024 General Election in the UK. Thatelection, which, if one were to believe the general media, resulted in an“overwhelming victory” for the UK Labour Party and ensured a super majority forthat party in the Houses of Parliament.

 

Yet, in fact, the direct opposite is true:the Labour Party polled an ABSOLUTE MINORITY of the votes.

 

The actual results of the election showed that66.3% of the voters, voted directly AGAINST the Labour Party, and only 33.7% ofthe voters actually voted for Keir Starmer’s’ party.

 

The actual results of the 2024 UK election areas follows:

 

Labour Party:

Votes: 9,704,655 (33.7% of votes cast).

Members of Parliament: 411 (63.2% of theseats)

 

Conservative Party

Votes: 6,827,311 (23.7% of votes cast)

Members of Parliament: 121 (18.6% of theseats)

 

Liberal Democrats

Votes: 3,519,199 (12.2% of votes cast).

Members of Parliament: 72 (11.1% of theseats)

 

Scottish National Party

Votes: 724,758 (2.5% of votes cast).

Members of Parliament: 9 (1.4% of theseats)

 

Sinn Féin

Votes: 10,891 (0.7% of votes cast).

Members of Parliament: 7 (1.1% of theseats)

 

Independent

Votes: 564,243 (2.0% of votes cast).

Members of Parliament: 6 (0.9% of theseats)

 

Reform UK

Votes: 4,117,221 (14.3% of votes cast).

Members of Parliament: 5 (0.8% of theseats)

 

Democratic Unionist Party

Votes: 172,058 (0.6% of votes cast).

Members of Parliament: 5 (0.8% of theseats)

 

Green Party of England and Wales

Votes: 1,841,888 (6.4% of votes cast).

Members of Parliament: 4 (0.6% of theseats)

 

Plaid Cymru

Votes: 194,811 (0.7% of votes cast).

Members of Parliament: 4 (0.6% of theseats)

 

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Votes: 86,861 (0.3% of votes cast).

Members of Parliament: 2 (0.3% of theseats)

 

Alliance Party of Northern Ireland

Votes: 117,191 (0.4% of votes cast).

Members of Parliament: 1 (0.2% of theseats)

 

Ulster Unionist Party

Votes: 94,779 (0.3% of votes cast).

Members of Parliament: 1 (0.2% of theseats)

 

Traditional Unionist Voice

Votes: 48,685 (0.2% of votes cast).

Members of Parliament: 1 (0.2% of theseats)

 

 

The discrepancy between the number of votescast and the parliamentary seats won—evident in the case of the Labour Party,the Liberal Democrats, and the Reform UK parties in particular—is the result ofthe utterly decrepit “first past the post” parliamentary system, where theparty that gains the single largest vote—even if it is only 1 vote more thanthe second-placed party—wins the seat, regardless of how many votes were castagainst it.

 

In this way, for example, the Labour Partywon most of its seats with an absolute minority of votes, with most voterscasting votes directly against that party.

 

There can be no doubt that if the UK wereactually a “democracy”—that is, if it had a system of ProportionalRepresentation (where each party is allocated seats according to actual votes)—thenthere would not be a Labour Party government in power in 2024.

 

The bottom line, however, is that the 2024Labour Party government is an illegitimate minority regime, propelled intopower by the distortions of the “democratic system.”

 

It is also an indication of the moral –or,more accurately put—immoral nature of the “democratic” politicians and theLabour Party in particular that they blithely go along with his charade,knowing full well that three-quarters of the country specifically voted againstthem.

 

Add, therefore, “immoral” to the descriptionabove: the 2024 Labour Party government is an illegitimate, immoral, minorityregime, propelled into power by the distortions of the “democratic system.”

Fascinating DNA Evidence Emerges from 79 AD Pompeii

The very first ancient DNA extracted from two bodies recovered from the ruins of Pompeii (which was destroyed in the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D 79) has revealed that at least one of the individuals in question was either of mixed African or Jewish ancestry.

Above: A picture taken in 1934 of Room 9 of the Casa del Fabbro, with the remains of the skeletons as they were discovered. It was these skeletons which were the subject of the 2022 DNA analysis. (Image from Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, 1934, p. 286, fig. 10.)  Below, the same scene photographed in 2009.

The DNA discovery, announced in various media outlets, was the product of a study led by Gabriele Scorrano et. al. from the Centre of Molecular Anthropology for Ancient DNA Studies, Department of Biology, University of Rome, titled “Bioarchaeological and palaeogenomic portrait of two Pompeians that died during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD”, and published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports | (2022) 12:6468.

The analysed human remains came from Room 9 of the Casa del Fabbro (Regio I, Insula 10, civic 7), and, the paper states, their “position and orientation are compatible with instantaneous death due to the approach of the high-temperature volcanic ash cloud.”

Of the two skeletons analysed for DNA traces (done by sampling a petrous bone from each individual, and subjecting bone powder to intensive laboratory processes), only one (“Individual A”) produced enough detail for a complete genomic analysis.

Table 1 of that paper provided the completed results:

(“Table 1. Statistic parameters and contamination results of the individuals analysed” can be found on page 3 of the PDF of the article).

Accordingly, the paper reported on the Y-Chromone (male chromosome) result as follows:

“Individual A, albeit at low coverage (Table 1), was found to belong to the Y-chromosome lineage A-M13 (A1b1b2b), a rare lineage absent among ancient individuals from the Italian Peninsula, mainly found in Eastern Africa (~ 40%), but with known occurrences, at much lower frequencies, in the Near East (Turkey, Yemen, Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Oman and Saudi Arabia).”

As stated quite definitively by Eupedia, Y haplogroup A-M13is an African and Semetic haplogroup:

“There are only rare and isolated cases of European men belonging to haplogroup A. Commercial tests have identified a few Scottish and Irish families (surnames Boyd, Logan and Taylor) all belonging to the same A1b1b2 (M13) subclade. This subclade is normally found in East Africa (Ethiopia, Sudan), but has also been found in Egypt, the Arabian peninsula, Palestine, Jordan, Turkey, Sicily, Sardinia and Algeria. It was certainly brought to Europe by Levantine people, be it during the Neolithic or later (Phoenicians, Jews, immigration within the Roman Empire.”

The Nature study went on to describe Individual A’s mitochondrial DNA (female chromosome) HV0a as follows:

“The mitochondrial DNA haplogroup . . . revealed that the individual belongs to the haplogroup clade HV0a, the main monophyletic branch of HV0 and subclade of haplogroup HV. This mitochondrial lineage is absent among published Roman Imperial individuals from Italy.”

According to Eupedia, the mitrochondrial DNA HV is“indubitably [a] Middle Eastern haplogroup. 

According to Eupedia, 

“HV is found at a frequency ranging from 4% to 9% in most of the Middle East. Its highest frequency is observed in Iraq and Kurdistan (9%), as well as among the Dargins (9%) of Dagestan, in the north-east Caucasus. HV is unevenly spread around Europe, being extremely rare in Finland, Scandinavia (except Iceland), the British Isles, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Albania, and most of Iberia. The highest percentages of haplogroup HV in Europe are observed in Calabria (10%), Sicily (5%), Tuscany (5%), Sardinia (4.5%), Bulgaria (4%), southern Belarus (4%), Croatia (3.5%), Ukraine (3.5%), Iceland (3.5%), Greece (3%), Cyprus (2.5%), and Romania (2.5%).”

The Nature study, in the quotes above, makes great effort to state that neither of the two Haplogroups have been found in contemporary ancient DNA studies undertaken on Roman skeletons.

In other words, both male and female lineages of Individual A were “absent” from DNA recovered from all other comparable Roman Imperial DNA studies — i.e., they were not Romans.

However, as far as the autosomal DNA results go, the paper states that the “genome-wide analyses point out that the Pompeian individual A is genetically close to the extant Mediterranean peoples, mostly to Central Italians and Sardinians.

“It is plausible to think that, thanks to the expansion and the increase in effective population size during the Roman Imperial Age, the Roman genetic pool could have contributed to the nearby populations with a genetic signature that can still be recognized in the extant Mediterranean regions today.”

Furthermore, the autosomal DNA suggests 

“strong affinities with the surrounding central Italian population from the Roman Imperial Age. Our findings suggest that, despite the extensive connection between Rome and other Mediterranean populations, a noticeable degree of genetic homogeneity exists in the Italian peninsula at that time.”

What this suggests, in plain language, is that the individual in question must have had some “foreign”, that is, European, admixture somewhere in his family tree in order to have produced those autosomal DNA results.

Figure 2 of the paper plots the position of Individual A in relation to other population groups:

The ultimate conclusion, left unsaid by the paper, is that Individual was not originally Roman, and was of mixed descent, and most likely Jewish in origin.

This conclusion is in line with artistic evidence found elsewhere in Pompeii. For example, the famous portrait of Terentius Neo and his wife, found in his house in Regio 7, Insula 2, 6 in Pompeii, is a clear example of a racially-mixed type from that city.

Terentius Neo and his wife, Pompeii.

Sometimes a picture says it all, and doesn't need further comment.

Russia Invades Ukraine: My Two Cents

 Someone asked me what I thought of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

My amswer:

"Idiot whites killing one another again over drivel. One can't help think that with such behaviour, Europeans somehow want to be wiped out."

How the Republican Party Lost the Georgia Senate Election Runoffs: and why the results undermine Trump’s “voter fraud” narrative

The results of the Georgia Senate election runoffs—which saw the Democratic party take control of the US Senate—served to once again shock Trump supporters and Republicans.
But the result was, once again, completely predictable, and the reality behind the results serve to illustrate once again what a dangerous diversion the Trump “voter fraud” narrative is, as it serves to obscure the real reason for the result: namely, the shifting racial demographics of the US electorate.
As revealed by them Pew Research Center, “Black, Latino and Asian Americans have been key to Georgia’s registered voter growth since 2016” (that is, since Trump’s surprise 2016 victory). 

According to the Pew research, the number of Black registered voters in Georgia increased by about 130,000 between Oct. 11, 2016, and Oct. 5, 2020, the largest increase among all major racial and ethnic groups.
The number of Black registered voters in Georgia increased by about 130,000 between Oct. 11, 2016, and Oct. 5, 2020, the largest increase among all major racial and ethnic groups, and the total number of new voters registered in that state since 2016 totaled an astonishing 520,000! 
As the Pew research continued:
"The number of Latino and White registered voters increased by roughly the same amount, each by 95,000, despite there being far fewer Latino than White existing registered voters (260,000 vs. 3.8 million). The number of Asian registered voters increased by 63,000, a substantial amount relative to the group’s Oct. 5, 2020, total (188,000)." 
Furthermore, "roughly 72,000 newly registered voters (14%) did not disclose their race or ethnicity, while 56,000 (11% of newly registered voters) identify with other racial and ethnic groups. The number of Native American registered voters more than doubled from 6,000 in 2016 to 15,000 in 2020. In addition, roughly 76,000 new voters have reportedly registered between the presidential election Oct. 5 deadline and the Dec. 7 U.S. Senate runoff registration deadline. Fewer than half (46%) of these new voters identified themselves as White. White registered voters remain the largest group among all Georgians registered to vote, making up 53% in 2020 – down from 63% just before the 2008 election."
And that latter figure—-the fact that whites now only constitute 53 percent of the voters in Georgia—reveals exactly why the Democratic Party won and “flipped” the state.
It was not, as the Trump faction allege, caused by voter fraud (although I cannot think that there was none of that, either), but rather by simple racial demographic change.
In other words, it was, and is, impossible for the Republicans to win any state-wide race without a nearly 100 percent white turnout (which never happens) and without winning nearly ALL the white vote (which also never happens).
Thus the math is simple: even though the Republicans easily won a majoirty of the white vote, the combined nonwhite-liberal white vote, just overran them.

For example, Democratic Georgia Senate candidate Jon Ossoff won 30 percent of the white vote, as opposed to his Republican opponent David Perude's 70 percent.

But the 92 percent black vote for Ossof, combined with the 63 percent "Latino" vote, provided the numbers the Democrats needed to flip the state.

And this also reveals why the race-denial of the Trump conservatives is dangerous: it distracts from the real issue, namely that white Americans are being replaced by the Third World. 
As long as the Trumpists refuse to see or understand that shifting racial demographics are behind their loss of political power, they will continue to wander like the blind in the darkness of night: clutching at one straw after another in their vain attempts to explain their situation. 
Only when the Trumpists abandon their conservative nonsense, and take on a full and deep understanding of the direct relationship between race, demographics, and political power, will they ever get around to dealing with the situation, and joining up with those who already know the solution: planned, peaceful, step-by-step, secession into an ethnostate.

Trump Crashes and Burns—as he always would . . .

 When Donald Trump was elected in 2016—thanks to the disproportional representation system of the US’ Electoral College—I was, like many others, astonished, and did not really know what to expect apart from an understanding that the next four years were going to be interesting like no other presidential term in recent history.

And Trump did not disappoint. From his hilarious twitter account to his wall-building, from his murderous assassination of Iranian generals and acquiescence in Israel’s ongoing murder of Iranian scientists, from his bombing of ISIS-fighting Syrian soldiers to his failure to understand the racial demographic changes underway in America which destroyed his own re-election chances; all of this was a soap opera which had to have a dramatic ending, one way or another.

And boy, he did not disappoint. I think he will be lucky to escape legal consequences following the events at the US Capitol on January 6. What was he thinking? What were those people thinking? That one could just storm Congress, literally kick in the door, and then walk away as if nothing happened?

Trump’s supporters will now learn the hard way that if one follows that path—of attacking Congress—one has to be prepared to go all the way, and not back down once the Rubicon has been crossed. They will now face punishment like many have not even dreamed about, and all for nothing.

They will also have finally wrecked any chance of the real and genuine legal challenge against the presidential election results (that based on the constitutional provision which states that election rule changes must be endorsed by thee state legislatures) from succeeding.

Trump’s supporters will also now have learned, as ably demonstrated in the Georgia Senate runoff elections, that race is the sole determining factor in politics, and the very nature of society itself.

As usual, the Trumpists pretended that the Georgia race was a fight between “capitalism” and “socialism,” or between “radicals” and “moderates.” And so the silly white Republicans campaigned as if race didn’t exist.

Contrast that with the Democratic campaign, which openly relied on the black vote in Georgia. The “Black Votes Matter”movement organized hundreds of thousands of black votes to be submitted for the Democratic candidates, and the media openly admitted this and cheered it on (See “Why Warnock and Ossoff Won in Georgia, New York Times, Jan. 7, 2021; “How Black voters lifted Georgia Democrats to Senate runoff victories,” The Guardian,  7 Jan 2021,  et al).

From the Georgia results we learn that 93% of black voters supported the Democratic candidates, a racial voting block which, when combined with the 29 % white liberal vote, simply overran the majority white Republican vote.

(The double standards here are clear, and reveal a story in themselves: Blacks organizing on a racial basis is a good thing, but God help any person trying to organize whites on a racial basis—that would be the height of evil!  It’s so obvious, but who dares point it out?)

So now we come to the end of the Trump presidency, on an explosive note which was almost inevitable. His crashing and burning on January 6, 2021, was almost a fitting end to a pointless diversion, and will force his dispirited followers into either finally understanding that their salvation lies in peaceful, planned, secession, or ultimately being consumed by the Third World.

Trump Not Done Yet! Next Step is Individual State Suits

 IN a display of resilience which is breathtaking to behold, the Trump faction has not backed down from their very dubious defeat at the US Supreme Court and are launching another barrage of law suits, this time in induvial states, which are carbon copies of the original suit.

The US Supreme Court’s ruling that the state of Texas had no standing to interfere in other state’s elections procedures, despite the very clear breaches of Article II of the US Constitution, is one of those decisions that is open to interpretation on Article III of that same Constitution. It is probably something that could be argued, but obviously that isn’t going to happen.

According to Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, “We move immediately, seamlessly, to plan B, which is to bring lawsuits now in each one of the states. We had them ready. They’re just a version of the one that was brought in the Supreme Court. So last night, the president made the decision,” Giuliani said during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s  “War Room: Pandemic.”

According to Giuliani, suits are being filed in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada. The suits will essentially be copies of the allegations contained in the original Texan suit.

“If the state doesn’t have standing, surely the president of the United States has standing. And certainly, the electors in the states have standing. So, they will be bringing those very cases right in those courts, starting today,” Giuliani said. “And let’s see what excuse they can try to use to avoid having a hearing on that.”

So the soap drama is not over yet.

View from the drivers cabin of a Durban, South Africa, Metro Train Decem...

A sad video taken from inside the drivers cabin of a metro train in Durban, South Africa, in December 2020. Cry the Beloved Country.

Latest Supreme Court Twist in US Election: Has Trump “Grabbed Them by the Pu**y?”

 I—like many others—was somewhat dismissive of the latest US Supreme Court application, launched initially by the state of Texas against the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia, alleging that the presidential elections in those states were invalid.  However, upon reading the plaintiff’s case carefully, and double checking with the constitution, I am forced to wonder if Trump has not indeed this time “grabbed them all by the pu**y.”

* Updaete 12/12/2020:  as predicted below, the Supreme Court used the "standing" issue to refuse to hear the case. There are now no more legal options for Trump.

Essentially, the case before the court can be summed up as follows:

Article II of the US Constitution says that only the state legislatures can draw up the rules by which presidential elections for electors are held in the states.

Article II, Constitution of the United States

"The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . . ."

The four states named as respondents (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia) all ran their elections by rules created outside of the state legislatures, that is, rules created by judges, unelected civil servants, and orders from some individual politicians.

These rules all had to do with the rules governing mail-in ballots, which in Pennsylvania’s case, jumped from around 230,000 in 2016, to nearly 2.5 million in 2020. These arbitrary rules included the mailing out of unsolicited ballot forms to voters, a lack of enforcement of the signature check rules, amongst many other issued.

To use the mail-in ballots as an example: traditionally, when a voter applies for a mail in ballot, they must sign an application form.

The returned ballot is then cross checked against the original application form signature to try and ensure that it came from the person who asked for the ballot. 

Obviously, when mail in ballots are sent out unsolicited, this double check process cannot be enforced or used.

Here is the important part: the decision to use unsolicited mail-in ballots was not the result of the legislatures of any of the states, but rather the made-up rules by individuals within the states’ civil service.

California, by contrast, ordered their election from within decisions taken in the state legislature. That is why they are not named as respondents.

So the bottom line is that Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia, all ran their elections in contravention of the US constitution.

The suit does not have to prove fraud: all it does is show that the states failed to adhere to the regulations as laid down in the constitution.

And on the face of it, this would appear to be a correct argument.

 

Texas, Plaintiff

v.

Pennsylvania, et al.

Supreme Court Case Docket

"This case presents a question of law: Did the Defendant States violate the Electors Clause by taking non-legislative actions to change the election rules that would govern the appointment of presidential electors?

These non-legislative changes to the Defendant States’ election laws facilitated the casting and counting of ballots in violation of state law, which, in turn, violated the Electors Clause of Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution.

By these unlawful acts, the Defendant States have not only tainted the integrity of their own citizens’ vote, but their actions have also debased the votes of citizens in Plaintiff State and other States that remained loyal to the Constitution."

 

The Texas suit goes on to suggest that the Court also order the remedy contained within the constitution. This is a clause which was inserted specifically to deal with disputes about election outcomes.

According to the constitution, there are two ways in which this dispute about the selection of electors can be solved. The Court can

(i) order that the state legislatures appoint the electors directly (on the basis that the state legislature was also elected by the people) or

 (ii) refer the election of the president directly to Congress. In such a case, each state is given ONE vote based on state delegations.

The Republican Party controls the state legislatures of the four states named as respondents, and that party also makes up a majority of the state delegations in the House (if not a majority of individual delegates, but that doesn’t matter as each state is given a vote, not each individual congressman/woman).

In either of these two remedies, Trump will take the Electors from those four states, and pass the 270 Elector mark with ease, adding 62 electors to his total and reducing Biden’s by the same amount.

So what will the US Supreme Court do?  That is the million-dollar question.

If the Court follows through on the Constitution, they will have no choice but to agree with the Texan suit.

Furthermore, on the fact of it, it would appear that the only way this suit could be struck down is on a technicality on the standing of the parties involved, revolving around the claim that the States do not have the right to take each other to Court on such matters.

Whatever they decide, it will be an interesting few weeks ahead.

COVID-Denial Crankery Stumbles as Sweden's Anti-COVID-19 Measures Fail Completely

 COVID-denial cranks—of whom there are sadly a large number on the so-called "right wing" of the political spectrum—must be feeling red-faced today as news emerges that Sweden’s much-vaunted laissez-faire approach to containing the pandemic has resulted in a death rate ten times higher than its equally-sized immediate neighbors.

New reports have revealed that Sweden’s death toll has now passed 7,000—far larger than its equally sized neighbors Denmark, Finland and Norway, which have recorded death-rates of  878, 415 and 354 deaths respectively  (figures correct as of December 6, 2020).

Previously, COVID-19 denialist lauded Sweden’s approach to dealing with the crisis, saying that the reliance on “voluntary measures” to control the epidemic was somehow proof that all the other nations were wrong in making mask-wearing and the closure of proven high-risk transmission centers—such as bars and nightclubs—compulsory.

As a report in the Wall Street Journal has revealed, a surge in infections in Sweden has “led to rising hospitalizations and deaths,” and the government there “has abandoned its attempt—unique among Western nations—to combat the pandemic through voluntary measures.”

The Wall Street Journal continued: “Like other Europeans, Swedes are now heading into the winter facing restrictions ranging from a ban on large gatherings to curbs on alcohol sales and school closures—all aimed at preventing the country’s health system from being swamped by patients and capping what is already among the highest per capita death tolls in the world.”

Now, Sweden has a Covid-19-related death rate reaching almost 700 per million inhabitants, its infections are growing as rapidly as anywhere else, and in some cases, faster. It is therefore no surprise that the government has a “made a U-turn.”

What this means is that there is no sign that the “herd immunity” strategy works to combat the virus.

What the COVID-denialists all failed to grasp was that the virus was something completely new, and no-one, not the “experts” or the numerous “lay-experts” actually had any real idea of how to deal with the pandemic.

All the experts could do was to deal with it as best as they could given past experience of world wide pandemics, and that was what they did, with the notable exception of Sweden.

In addition, it also now transpires that Sweden’s approach did also not “save the economy” either. According to official figures, in the first half of 2020, Sweden’s gross domestic product fell by 8.5% and unemployment is projected to rise to nearly 10% in the beginning of 2021.

Just as many businesses in Sweden are facing closure as anywhere else—except that, unlike in the rest of Europe, “where governments coupled restrictions with generous stimulus, Swedish authorities have offered comparatively less support to businesses since they didn’t impose closures.”

As Swedish restaurateur Jonas Hamlund told the Wall Street Journal: “This is worse than a lockdown and it has been a catastrophic year for everyone in the business: They haven’t closed us so they don’t give us any substantial support, yet [now] they say to people ‘don’t go to restaurants’.” Hamlund was forced to close one of his two restaurants in the coastal city of Sundsvall, laying off 30 people.

Fear of the virus and the government’s advice to avoid social interactions have weighed on domestic demand, damaging business and investor confidence, said Lars Calmfors, an economist and member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. “Countries that had mandatory restrictions have done better than us,” he added.

In Stockholm, Anna Lallerstedt runs a chain of three popular restaurants that was started by her parents in the 1980s. Last month she closed two of them, shedding nearly 100 jobs. She says she fears that her last restaurant, now employing just over 10 people, might also be at risk with the current surge expected to peak around the Christmas season, which traditionally brings substantial revenues. “Maybe we should have had masks earlier,” Ms. Lallerstedt said.

* Talking of masks, it is also of interest to note that some COVID-denialists have also claimed that there has never before been compulsory mask-wearing in the West before, and that this measure is a sign of “government control.”

This is, of course, nonsense. Compulsory mask wearing and social distancing was an automatic measure implemented during the infamous 1918 flu pandemic, as even the most basic of historical research easily demonstrates.