It Feels Like The Jack Boot Is On Our Collective Necks

First it was Russia, Russia, Russia constantly blaring from the media.  We were assured that the evidence was there, but we had to wait for the Mueller report.  When that fell through, it was Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine.  Every night on the nightly news we were assured that even though we could read the transcript for ourselves, and see there was nothing to it, there was evidence that the President had made a quid pro quo demand.  When that failed, along comes the corona virus, COVID 19.  Reports of corona virus take up 90 - 95% of the nightly news.  Now, I am not an expert on viruses, nor am I a medical doctor, but forgive me for thinking that all the hoopla is making much out of little.

The media has whipped up a panic that threatens to overwhelm the effects of the disease itself.  As Trump has said, we don't need the cure to be worse than the disease.  Now, I am 68 years old, and have been through a number of panics in my time.  As a youth, the Russians were coming with nuclear bombs to bomb us into oblivion any day.  We were all doomed!  Doomed, I tell you.  Then there was Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," followed closely by Paul Ehrlich's "Population Bomb."  These tombs told us that we were polluting the environment beyond the earth's capacity to clean it up, and we were using the earth's resources such that they would all run out.  Oh, and then it was global cooling...er...global warming...oops...global climate change. In between we had the ozone hole, mass extinction, etc. etc. All were and are either complete hoaxes, or extremely over blown. The goal of each was to extract money from you and me, and give more power to those in power, while decreasing our own liberty and freedoms.

In an article by Jack Cashill at the American Thinker entitled Reflections On A Century Of Junk Science, the author takes the reader through these hoaxes and compares reality:

During the last few weeks, I had made a point of not watching or following the news. I trusted none of it. A TV at the pizza place, however, was tuned to CNN. It showed the Coronavirus death toll: 12,000-plus worldwide and 285 in the United States.

The numbers stunned me. Not following the news closely, I presumed, based on the hysteria in the air, that the numbers had to be at least ten times that high both nationally and internationally.

285? According to the Centers for Disease Control 185 Americans died of drug overdoses every day in 2018. According to the CDC, 315 people died of the flu every day during the six-month 2018-2019 flu season. And if protecting life is the goal, we could save about 400 young lives every work hour by shutting down America’s abortion clinics.

Cashill is, of course, correct. When compared to these and other statistics, the corona virus looks pretty tame. Of course, I believe we should be concerned and pay attention to it, but to destroy the economy, lay off millions of workers, and interrupting social functions and supply lines, seems a gross over reaction. Being 68, I am in the cohort of those who are most vulnerable to it, yet doesn't it make more sense to have those who are vulnerable protect themselves?

Frankly, I can't help but believe that this is both an attempt to make Trump look as bad as possible, while normalizing progressive agenda items like restricting guns, or even outright banning the sale and transfer of guns and ammunition. And once such emergency measures are in place, anti-gun politicians will be reluctant to return to normal.  Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress want to add the green new deal to economic relief legislation. And I am not really in favor of such legislation, let alone adding "Christmas Tree" items like the green new deal.

As the media has whipped up a frenzy, panic buying by people at grocery stores has taken hold.  Toilet paper has been in especially short supply.  The other day the store was all out of onions and sweet potatoes.  Flour was also completely out, though cake mixes were fully stocked.  I commented to a woman standing in line that the stores were beginning to look like Venezuela.  But she had no idea what I was talking about.  And she votes!

My totally uninformed opinion?  We may be able to slow the spread of covid 19, but it will none the less become endemic eventually.  We really can not stop it.  Of course, wash your hands frequently.  If you are a older person with compromised immune system, isolate yourself.  If you have the symptoms of covid 19, of course isolate yourself and contact your doctor.  But otherwise, people should live their lives.  People are social animals, and isolation is not good for their mental health.  Indeed, it is used as a form of punishment.  It certainly feels like the jack boot is on our necks.