Every cloud has a silver lining, we tell ourselves. We believe, or hope at least, that no matter how grim conditions may be, we will emerge from them to a new level of happiness, love or accomplishment. We know – or believe – enough to sacrifice today and in this lifetime, to receive the rewards of a better life before we die… or afterwards.
So it must be with this God-forsaken imposition of leftist tyranny that politicians are blaming on “the coronavirus.” Most of us have quickly, aggressively, agreed to forego our “unalienable rights” to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Most of us have agreed to be frightened by the dire descriptions of what is happening to a fast-shifting number or percentage of COVID-19-infected fellow citizens and to denizens of foreign countries. In the span of 3 weeks or so Americans watched China (until the news was clamped down) Italy and Iran erupt with thousands of deaths from COVID-19. Suddenly in early March, politicians and medical bureaucrats who days earlier had been telling Americans that they would not be very much impacted by the new coronavirus, were grimly commanding us to stay at home, stop intermingling with others, stop working or playing, and to obey, obey, obey in order to “flatten curves” and “save lives.”
It might have. There really is no way to precisely state whether the curves “flattened” because of the lockdown. It’s possible that the course of the infection rate (which is still not fully known) would have been about the same if people were given good advice and masks and told to stay out of work if exposed or symptomatic. Unfortunately, locking down a whole city or state is something the true government types have dreamt of: stopping people from enjoying life unfairly, and enforcing the stoppage with police powers. Oh! My! Gawd! “I never realized how good this would truly feel,” hundreds of mayors and governors (may) have been overheard to say. “My Poli-Sci professor tried to tell us but who could have imagined the glow?”
There are several collateral injuries that result from any brutal attack and the requisite stern defenses governments must mount on our behalf. Businesses close down, for one, but, when you think about it, most of those were unfairly profitable, especially for the owners. Lots of people lose their jobs, for another, but, when you think about it, a lot of them are church-goers and even Christians, so the damage isn’t as bad as it could have been. If we put a stop to church-going altogether, no one will feel unfairly repressed. There are more reports of domestic violence, but that’s a problem of degree, only. Child abuse is also up, according to agencies that watch those things, but those kids were going to be abused at some point, anyway. Let’s get the federal government to send out checks to everybody and they’ll all put up with the house-arrest that is so obviously necessary.
Still, we can’t let people stew over conditions for long periods. We’ll have to add new policies and closures here and there to keep lock-down opponents off-balance. We are saving lives, after all.
There are several silver linings, though, despite the multi-trillion-dollar costs (so far) and building conflict with Red China. For one big thing, the utter inability for state governments in “progressive” states to do the right thing for even a large fraction of their populations, has been made glaringly clear. Their citizens, tenuously holding the power of voting idiots out of office, should take note: big opportunity ahead.
The purposes of those at the federal level, both elected and appointed, come in two sets: elected and deep-state. Elected officials have two goals: re-election and avoiding responsibility. Deep state denizens have only one: staying in power. Everything else is subordinate. This should help explain why change can be excruciatingly slow or, about as often, way off-target… not off any target, just off our, citizens’ target. Whatever politicians do is hitting, first, their personal targets as they become wealthy in office.
Power and re-election are drivers for state pols, too. The most common end of legislative service is retirement at age. Citizen-legislator is a mythical being from a long-ago time; today we have the inside-government “us” and the lesser, civilian “them.” In any case, once a sweeping declaration of change is made, it must be defended and justified as the very best, life-saving decision that could have been made due to forces over which the deciding politician had no control. Then, when the consequences appear to be going sideways, the same politician will defend and reinforce the underlying, out-of-control circumstances that forced the original decision.
In effect, then, regarding current political fears, it is Prudent to describe the problem as one of politicians building a box from which they cannot escape. With haphazard statistics peppering them during January, February and into March, everyone in a decision-making position – president on down – was afraid to not shut things down. “We must flatten the curve,” said the medical experts, “for if we don’t our hospitals will be overwhelmed and people will needlessly die… die…die.” OMG! The possibilities of politicians being blamed for something – being forced to take responsibility for something, anything – were growing to be a real crisis.
As each day passed and unfortunately ill-suited supply chains drew unending accusations, the future looked bleak. Hot spots seemed to be simply precursors of what was waiting around the corner for every city and state. Stormy skies for the Republic were forecast, minute by minute, to finally fall on our heads the day after tomorrow. Things were worse than we thought and getting worse than that.
Quickly, private enterprise shifted manufacturing and supply chains to fill the gaps in equipment and personal protective equipment. Hospital ships were deployed; ventilators found, refitted or newly manufactured. Less than 3 weeks later there were too many ventilators and the emergency hospitals and ships were largely unused. We’re told those successes are all due to stay-at-home orders and strictures on groups as small as, well, one.
The work of the healthcare “system” was and is remarkable as it dealt with an infectious disease not fully understood. But understanding has developed quickly, as have testings that seek current infections, and past infections, more interestingly. The folly of many policies and mandates intended to slow the infection rate, is becoming stark.
All incidents are anecdotes until they are added up. People, especially blame-shedding politicians, can adhere to the “science” of mathematics while ducking responsibility simply by adding up certain incidents and not others. Every “covid” death was not a covid death; every shutdown business was not about to cause increased infection if not shut down. School-age children were neither at risk nor a risk for others. Even public transportation turned out to not be a major source of cross-infections.
Still, shutdowns were not relaxed and even enhanced to varying degrees. Governors and mayors were just beginning to flex their dictatorial muscles when pesky statistics began to intrude into the shutdown model. Two things were never going to happen as a result: 1) Those elected executives would change their shutdown tactics to accommodate new facts; or, 2) Those same would admit they had been wrong about some of their policies.
In some states shutdown rules became ever stricter despite evidence they need never have been strict at all. Besieged governors and even judges, appear to have reacted arbitrarily and personally to citizens demanding that the shutdowns be lifted, including arrests, lifting of licenses, incarceration and harassment. Essentially none of those instances involved any provable health risk… not even suspected health risk, the ostensible basis for the “rules.” Americans should be alert to and instructed by these and hundreds of other examples: Our nation is no longer a nation of laws, but a serfdom of rules. Rather than “We the people” ratifying shared moral codes of rights and wrongs, set in law, there are now, literally, tens of thousands of rules for what we sovereign citizens are allowed to do. The solemn advisories that cause small and large “g” governors to promulgate their new rules do not come from US, but from unelected “experts” who self-declare their predictive expertise and carry impressive resume’s.
Some are, perhaps, experts in a field of study, even epidemiology, even in studies of contagions and how they spread in past, somewhat similar environments. Our newest adversary, coronavirus-19, is not the same as earlier epidemics, it was not spread around the world in the same way, it has not mutated the same way, it has different symptoms, different impacts on different demographics, different gestation periods and different sensitivities to drugs and anti-viral chemicals. But, they knew exactly what to do before all the statistics were collected and studies were underway. Presumably these “scientists” would be poised to alter their predictions upon receipt of new facts and observations. Oddly, however, in direct contravention of scientific method, they have tended to “double down” (a popular gambling term) on their first predictions, making ever more draconian recommendations DESPITE new data. It is at this point that medical science became medical politics, or ideology. Like true ideologues they had staked out their beliefs, not their science, and those positions would be defended… economies and lives be damned.
Dr. Fauci appears to be in this class of dictators. In the span of a few days he switched from reassuring the public that the new coronavirus was not a major concern for Americans, to advising that the economy be shut down, gatherings prohibited and healthy citizens be confined. Only he can tell us if any science was behind his first views of COVID-19; only he can tell us if any science is behind his current views. Anyone, however, can tell that there is no science or even judgment behind his praise of W.H.O. director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a politician willing to cooperate with or promote some very sketchy other politicians in matters of public health – including those tied to the Chinese Communist Party. Ol’ Tedros’ communist-inspired lying can be thanked for many thousands of deaths in the U. S. and around the world.
