Before I begin, I will state this so it can’t be used against me; The Covid-19 virus is real and is more dangerous than the flu. I am not here to deny or downplay its severity. Yes, it is kind of a big deal (kind of). There I said it, I can get on with my post. While it is dangerous, and there are risks, the responses have been no less than an inept overreaction. It is as if the soccer moms on Facebook who like to bubble tape little Johnny before he plays T-ball, are now in charge of our public policy. Without warning, full data, debate, or common sense, the governments of the world decided to close their respective countries down economically. Costing trillions of dollar’s worth of damages and ruining lives. A win-win for the politicians who now can both grandstand and grab more power.
The Media Chimes In
The media, in predictable fashion, foamed at the mouth at this opportunity. Now is the time to scare the citizens into submission! Horror story after horror of how many people it is killing and how no one is safe. Not even your F-in cat or dog will be spared! Of course, the insults like Covid-idiots are being thrown around to anyone who dares step outside. And also, predictable, I have seen many articles trying to use this as a springboard to socialism.
Idiots in Hollywood are not far behind, criticizing anyone who dares question the orders of our governments. I guess it is easy to quarantine when you live in a mansion and you are not watching your life savings disappear while your business goes under. I can’t just make another remake of Home Alone to pad my bank account when this is all over.
Yet some basic questions are rarely mentioned during this madness. So many people are mindlessly allowing this shutdown to take place that they don’t even consider simple alternatives. Maybe I am just one of those uneducated hicks (Of course I have a master’s degree and grew up in Long Island), but I have some things I am curious about…
What Happened to Flattening the Curve?
Remember that cute little graph they showed about a month ago? The whole purpose of this isolation wasn’t to lower the number of people who got the virus, but to draw out the how long it took for everyone to get it. This was so the hospitals do not get over run. Guess what, in most of the country the hospitals are fine! Why do we still need to drag this out?
By the original logic shouldn’t we be encouraging young people to get the disease so if there is an outbreak in the fall less people will need to go to the hospital? Flattening the curve has been replaced with let’s stop the virus from spreading 100%. Just because we have done that a total of zero times in the history of the earth, why stop now?
Do You Really Have NO respect for the Constitution?
Many on the left think that the constitution is nothing more than an obstacle and has no place in modern life. Yet it exists and last I checked it is still the law of the land. Protesters still have the right to assemble, so how can anyone wave a magic wand and make our rights disappear.
Since when are peaceful protesters made out to be monsters? The media has called them everything from racists to morons, without even questioning if they have a point. Yes, some are acting foolishly, like those who are verbally attacking nurses and doctors. As a side, if you are doing that please stop it, you are not doing anyone any favors. Of course, the media loves to claim the outliers are the norm. They ignore the vast majority of the hard-working people who just want their lives back. If you can’t paint protesters as dumb, selfish monsters, it kills the narrative.
Why Do the Shutdowns Have to Be All or Nothing?
Luckily at the time of writing this fatigue has been setting in and some states are slowly opening themselves up. Without data or regard for any of their businesses well-being they shut down the world…why? First, many countries did far less in terms of shutting down everything, yet they have not seen the dramatic increases New York or California have.
Sweden, the country the media loves to hate, pretty much did nothing in terms of shutting down businesses and their cases are around 19K at the time of writing this. The United States which has been closed for over a month has more cases than that daily. I understand that there are population differences, but even when factored in the cases are far less than the United States. Japan also wasn’t as aggressive in terms of lock downs, and their Covid-19 cases are hardly earth shattering.
We could have closed schools, moved most office jobs to work from home and started there. Do we really think that Covid will go wild due to barber shops being open? How about the idea of letting younger people get on with their life? The data that is in tells us that the death rate is far less for people under 45, than those over 65. We take risks every day, isn’t this a reasonable risk for someone to take, especially compared to the alternative? Instead you close off the entire economy without regard for your own citizens. There are a lot of “MAYBES” out there…like maybe the summer does slow it significantly. Maybe the millions are already immune due to previously unknown exposure to the disease. I guess if we solve this without you, you cannot pat yourself on the back after destroying the economy.
How Will We Pay for All This Stimulus?
Forget-me-not Joe Biden, the man who mixed up his sister and wife (man that must have been awkward on their wedding night), proves his ignorance. He cried that the 2-Trillion-dollar stimulus wasn’t nearly enough. That is 2000 Billions, which is not nearly enough! People think we can blindly run deficits forever, yet it will catch up to us. Some like to say, “it has not got us yet so why worry”…which is like saying I eat 5 Big Macs a day, never exercise and smoke, but It hasn’t damaged my health yet. These things have a way of catching up to us. It is fine until it isn’t, we will hit that point.
Politicians are already using this disease as a way of bailing themselves out of the mess they made in their own states before Covid-19. Some State budgets and pensions were woefully underfunded before Covid-19, yet now they have a great excuse to beg for money from the feds. Many of these Socialists are using this as an excuse to push for Universal Basic Income, Student loan forgiveness and a host of other items. When the system finally collapses on itself, who will be there to pick up the pieces?
What is The End Game?
If this thing is so highly contagious and deadly what exactly is the end game? Yes, many states have a plan to open up, but there are still tens of thousands of people with this disease. Now that we halted the world and the disease has slowed, what happens when we open? Surely you aren’t waiting until we have zero cases or a vaccine to open up the economy, that will take years.
It takes one super spreader under the right conditions to spread this around again. We will literally be back in the same boat in the fall. If on the other hand we let young people get it, this will help to flatten the curve to the point where it is manageable. Just pushing off the inevitable is not a plan, then again you do it with the federal deficit so maybe you think it is.
Who the @#$K Do You Think You Are?
How dare you use this as a power grab to flex your own muscles. Do you even comprehend the damage you have done to people’s livelihoods? People are losing everything they built in a lifetime because you unilaterally closed their businesses. People are out of a job, with almost no way to get a new one, because you said so. You are gleefully forcing the entire nation into a debt that can never be repaid, yet we are all supposed to fall in line and not even question this madness
How dare you make people into criminals for having loved ones over to their home. How dare you use the media to call people who don’t listen to you idiots. You speak to us like children, some politicians threatening to close things such as liqueur stores (some already did). You use your power to drag people out of oceans when they are swimming by themselves. Give people tickets for watching a sunset in their car. A man was pulled over for breaking curfew while getting ice cream with his daughter. What the F- is a curfew for? Why will a curfew change anything? You are not our kings, and you are not acting like we live in a free country.
Conclusion
Make no mistake about it, the government is using this as a power grab masking it as protection. Our “leaders” do not know what they are doing. Some of them are the inept, scared of risk, fear mongers, but with good intentions. Others are flat out are using this as an excuse to push for more of government power (which equals their power.) These politicians do not work for us, they think we are their children, theirs to exploit. They will use any excuse to have power over us, and the majority are blindly allowing it. Until next time – Truth Be Told