An American Virtue
Atlanta, GA
Rarely have we had such cause to worry about what the present presents, and what the future holds.
A couple days ago, we recounted our brief, unexpected journey to the 19th century.
Having returned reluctantly to our own time, and had another look around, I’ve decided I want to go back to that earlier age…and stay there. I honestly don’t think I belong in this one.
Even to forgo modern dentistry, anesthesia, and antibiotics might be worth it. Today’s lunacy and stupidity are worth most any price to escape.
Virtually any other period will do. Late seventeenth century Salem and early seventeenth century Fulda had less witchcraft than the sorcery wafting from the cauldrons of our current “Follow the Science” cult.
The same wizards who presume to manage the climate or redefine the sexes now think, if given enough bullhorns and billy clubs, that they can use political means to solve a medical problem.
Data show no correlation between COVID hospitalizations and the severity of enforced lockdowns or mandated masks. Even meaningless “case” counts don’t corroborate the prevailing thesis. Yet those baseless remedies, as the lone leeches and amulets in our politicians’ monomaniacal arsenal, remain the mantra.
There is, of course, no “science” behind lockdowns. “Lockdown” is (appropriately enough in a hyper-politicized culture) a prison term, not a medical one.
And there are no “experts” on the subject who can affirm lockdowns as a reasonable response to pestilence. They don’t teach house arrest in medical school. And they certainly don’t offer courses quantifying the multivariate risks each individual is willing to take to avoid getting sick. Before 2020, including countless years with more severe plagues, the notion of keeping an entire population locked away would’ve seemed tyrannical, inhumane, and imbecilic.
Because it is.
Whether and how we should shelter ourselves, shield grandma, shutter businesses, or let our kids live their lives are philosophical questions, not epidemiological ones. They can be answered only by each person, on the basis of his subjective value scale, and in consideration of potential trade-offs. No doctor, politician, or medical bureaucrat can determine for others if draconian tactics are “necessary” or “worth it”.
Meanwhile, as if it mattered, empirical data actually suggest they aren’t. At best, quarantining the world merely delays the inevitable, and produces unspeakable carnage in the interim.
This is a virus, not an encyclopedia salesman. It doesn’t go away simply because we wait long enough to open the door. It’s more like a spurned trick-or-treater. However long you hunker down and hide, it’ll stay outside, bide its time, and eventually throw an egg in your face.
Whenever we try to venture out, the virus will likely venture in. Because it’s a virus. That’s what they do, until they’ve run their course, engendered immunity, and burned themselves out.
Wrecking lives and destroying civilization won’t change or mitigate that. It will only produce a more depressing and destitute place for the bug to spread, while giving it more time to do so and us less ability to withstand it.
Much of Europe, which locked down hard earlier this year, is once again dropping the hammer and applying the chains. Australia and New Zealand went thru similar dictatorial calisthenics, crippling their citizens in desolation, depression, uncertainty, and despair. And, in what were once civilized “western” countries, they used storm trooper tactics to enforce their edicts.
That these governments feel they must repeatedly imprison innocent people would seem to refute their ostensible rationale for doing so. The stalag approach was tried seven months ago. Reviving it is an implicit admission that it didn’t work…depending, of course, on what these extreme measures are really intended to do.
As with Keynesian stimulus or quantitative easing, when State programs don’t work, the reaction isn’t to acknowledge that the philosophy is flawed. Instead, it is to double-down, to insist that it wasn’t applied rigorously enough, and that we rubes didn’t do enough to comply. So our masters keep tightening the screws.
Like a Middle East war, there is no end game, no barometer of success, or (more pertinently) of failure. During our current calamity, we proceeded seamlessly and shamelessly from “flattening the curve” to “containing the spread” to “until there’s a vaccine”.
As one prominent epidemiologist recently put it, we can expect a vaccine sometime between six months from now…and never. Yet, on cue, come the intimations that, even with a vaccine, we can’t have our old life back for “several years”, if ever. There clearly is no end-game…at least not one to which they’ll confess. If there is, it’s to garner our gradual acclimation, and our eventual submission.
Unfortunately, those are objectives our petty dictators and busybody bureaucrats may actually attain. Looking around, I don’t see much resistance to their outrages. Many Americans appear indifferent to, if not supportive of, the ritualistic propaganda before which we are expected to wave our acquiescent incense.
Regarding masks, my concern is more about cultural corrosion than medical merits. Despite no clear evidence affirming effectiveness, face fabrics are everywhere, probably for three primary reasons. Many wearers sincerely believe they limit viral spread. Others don them as a symbolic “virtue signal” (like an AIDS ribbon) to feign concern and pretend to be “doing something”. And most tolerate them so they can go to the store without being harassed.
My instinctive fear as masks started appearing in creepy ubiquity was that people would begin to acclimate, the fad would slowly normalize, and…like secular burqas…wearing them would become compulsory. At some point, masks could become harbingers of health passports and track-and-trace monitoring. It’s happening faster than I expected, and I’m afraid it’s here to stay.
People should feel free to wear masks (or not) if they choose. Aside from the relentless and disturbing social pressure to wear them, another concern is that many appear to enjoy doing so. And, even worse, that they are becoming fashionable. They are decorated, emblazoned with festive logos, and made into bizarre fashion statements.
This may seem an innocent enough way to make the best of a bad situation. But our guard should be up. This can subtly shift from being a cute adaptation to a temporary “necessity”, to a subdued accommodation of an insidious perpetuity. Regardless their artistic flair, masks risk becoming contemporary versions of Mao suits…diluting individuality by rendering wearers indistinguishable, unrecognizable, incomprehensible, and unexpressive.
Meanwhile, as we cover faces and bury smiles, we’ve also dispatched centuries of kisses, hugs, and handshakes as a way of greeting loved ones, expressing friendship, or sealing deals. Instead, routine interactions are rendered tentative and awkward by touching elbows like second-hand initiates to a third-rate fraternity.
We need to acknowledge what should by now be obvious. At this point, COVID is about politics, not health. It is not about controlling a virus. It is about controlling us. Masks, distancing, lockdowns, school closures, contact tracing, and case curves are essentially psych-op techniques to manipulate the masses and perpetuate fear. And it’s worked.
We’ve seen police harass mothers for gathering in parks and arrest grandmothers for going on a walk, while rioters rampage unmolested throughout major cities. Churches have been locked, entertainment cancelled, and businesses shuttered…all for being “non-essential”. Christian congregations have been arrested for singing in outdoor choirs. Regular weddings, funerals, and graduations are strictly limited, yet those for approved politicians are packed.
Like other deranged aspects of twenty-first century life, our recent inanity epitomizes what Chesterton called the modern and morbid habit of sacrificing the normal to the abnormal. In eight months, we’ve yielded much of what remained of our liberty, and become a conglomeration of obsessive compulsive germaphobes. We used to pity, and try to help, such people. Now, those who don’t act like them are considered weird, selfish, “unscientific” hicks.
The over-educated among us like to flatter themselves as an advanced, enlightened caste, worthier than their backward contemporaries and superior to their benighted ancestors. The truth is, as Deep Throat said of White House operatives in All the President’s Men, they’re not that smart.
These fools, knaves, and jackasses have presided over the late stages of a degenerate, bankrupt, amoral empire. But even (or especially) in an election year, we rarely debate any of those adjectives…and certainly not the noun. Yet all are much greater threats than this virus, which is nonetheless being used as an excuse to perpetuate, and distract from, each of them.
Today…for what it’s worth…is Election Day. We’ve previously reviewed reasons to indulge, or not. The last few weeks, we’ve been inundated with patronizing admonitions to vote, and with condescending instructions how to do so. Not for whom to vote, mind you…but how to actually stand in line and go about casting a ballot. Among the insults to our intelligence are directives to dress warmly if it is cold outside.
They think we’re morons.
And, in some sense, maybe we are. We’ll see. In a sane world, all officials who advocated for this year’s travesties would be not only booted from office, but brought up on charges. Any private citizen that wantonly confiscated property or detained his neighbor would be incarcerated. His “public servants” should expect no less.
These despots refuse to be confined or constrained by constitutional rules, so we should reject their whimsical ones. Crimes do not become legitimate just because they are committed by the government. As Jefferson stated in the Kentucky Resolutions, unconstitutional orders must be ignored, and unjust ones defied. They are, he said, “unauthoritative, void, and of no force”.
Among the greatest dangers from the outrages perpetuated this year is not only their severity, but their duration. The longer we accept the unwarranted intrusions, oppressive affronts, and dystopian customs to which we’ve been subjected, the more they become normalized, and to embed themselves as our accustomed way of life.
This ongoing nightmare won’t stop until compliance ceases. Vigilant resistance has always been an American virtue. Blind obedience must not become an American vice.
JD
