111 times. That’s how many times Dr. Anthony Fauci took the fifth when he appeared before the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on July 29. In 2022, Dr. Fauci had said on CNN: “I am very happy to testify before any congressional oversight committee. I have nothing to hide. I can explain and validate everything I’ve done… I am going to do what I need to do and that’s cooperate fully because we have nothing to hide.”
But come July 2026, that couldn’t prove to be further from the truth.
Why take the fifth in response to every question? In discussing the hearings with other people and expressing that we were curious about looking into them, we were usually met with the response of, “Why would you want to look into that?!” Our response would be, “Why not?” The pandemic is something that deeply affected all of us. During the pandemic, however, questioning the official line became virtually taboo. At the time, if you questioned, say, the safety of the mRNA vaccine, or the mitigation policies being imposed, you could be met with some form of public crucifixion. And that is not the American way.
When did we become so prone to believe down party lines? When did we become so prone to not thinking for ourselves? In a strange way, this kind of mentality has set the stage for AI and turning over our own freedom thought.
As the ancient adage goes, with great power comes great responsibility. And responsibility requires accountability.
Anthony Fauci is human, and humans are fallible. Numerous studies have shown that when a human being is given more power and authority, it tends to affect and change them. That is part of why it is always important to question those in power. In fact, we’d say that questioning those in power is our responsibility as Americans.
Social or official pressures that demand conformity result in the truth becoming ever more obscured. You might or might not believe that Fauci is being persecuted. But that doesn’t change the fact that the truth should matter. And it’s impossible to discover the truth without questions being asked and answered.
The coronavirus pandemic is a moment in history that in particular demands questions and answers. More than 1.2 million Americans died from Covid-19. The World Health Organization estimates that globally there were more than 14.9 million excess deaths in 2020 and 2021. Getting to the bottom of how this occurred is obviously critical.
We were told that the coronavirus originated naturally from a wet market in Wuhan. Yet, Fauci’s own diary (which qualified as federal agency records subject to oversight, subpoena, and public disclosure since the diary was written on a government computer) shows that Fauci thought it at least possible that the virus originated from gain-of-function experiments being conducted down the street at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This research was designed to study bat coronavirus and was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was led by Fauci. There are many other questions, too. The effectiveness of other Covid treatments. The risks of the mRNA vaccine. Fauci’s use of government staff and taxpayer money to pursue awards and cash prizes for himself. Evidence from Fauci’s diary that he was saying one thing publicly and another privately.
Dr. Fauci’s silence is especially hard to understand given that President Biden pardoned him for any possible federal offenses connected to his service from January 2014- January 19, 2025. Granted, that pardon doesn’t extend to the states. And it was crickets from the Democrats. No doubt there was political grandstanding on both sides. That can be pretty annoying for anyone who is actually interested in the pursuit of truth. The more games everyone plays, the farther away we get from that pursuit Politics has become a sport in this country. One that does not serve its people. Most Americans want really basic things. They want to be able to put food on the table. They want their children go to decent schools. They want access to affordable healthcare. They want the rights that are promised to them in the Declaration of Independence. During the pandemic, people lost their lives. People lost their jobs. Children were kept out of school. The psychological effect of the lockdown is something that we still haven’t recovered from and still don’t fully understand. We sometimes forget in this country how lucky we are to have the freedoms we do because they’re easy to take for granted. So many of us have had them our entire lives. But freedom requires vigilance.
Freedom requires sovereignty.
In the 1950s, an American psychologist named Solomon Asch conducted a series of social experiments known as the Asch conformity experiments. The experiment put a person, who is the actual test subject, in a room of actors. The test subject was asked to match a card with a single line to the correct line in another card with three lines labeled “A” “B” and “C.” The answer was obvious—the test was not designed to trick the test person or be a close call as to which lines matched. Rather, it was designed to see what the test subject would do when the others in the room chose the obviously wrong answer.
The results were stunning. Some 75% of the time, the test subject went along with the group and chose the obviously wrong answer at least once. In their exit interviews, most of the participants admitted they knew they’d picked the incorrect answer but didn’t want to be the only person to disagree. They expressed an intense fear of being ridiculed or creating awkwardness, as well as their own self-doubt. Some even said that they assumed their judgment was wrong since everyone else was choosing a different answer than what their own eyes were telling them. They said they trusted that since the entire room saw something different that they must be wrong. They trusted the majority.
The pandemic was a difficult time for many of us. We wanted to do the right thing. We wanted to protect our neighbors, and we wanted to protect ourselves. And in a time so fraught with turmoil, questions should not only have been welcomed— they should have been encouraged. And certainly now, six years later, we should be allowed to fully probe what took place. We should be allowed answers to our questions.
Society should be ever wary of anyone or any group that discourages questions or a search for the truth. Outsourcing our autonomy and creativity is a hot topic these days in light of artificial intelligence. And it is important to note that there is an inverse correlation between creativity and authoritarianism. Individual creativity is central to humanity. The more that we outsource our autonomy and our creativity, the more we become ever less capable and inclined toward authoritarianism.
So ask questions of your leaders. Do your own research. And above all, retain your sovereignty and creativity. The future of America depends on it.
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