Tarzan Vents About the Virus

Atlanta, GA

April 25, 2020

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. – H.L. Mencken 

“Are you insane?”

Uh oh…

“What?”, I winced, looking up from my book.

“Did you really do this? Who do you think you are…Tarzan? You pulled down a tree branch by kicking away a ladder and clutching clippers with only one good arm?”

Hmmm…I guess my wife reads this drivel after all.

“Yes. But I’m fine. And look at all the sun the azaleas are getting!

“Great. Keep being an idiot and they’ll look beautiful around your gravestone.”

Well…at the risk of requiring an undertaker, here goes…

Yesterday, all of Georgia started living without a net. Our entire family has fresh haircuts, new tattoos, and six-pack abs after an afternoon gym crawl.

Our governor has graciously permitted certain proprietors to decide for themselves whether they welcome willing customers into their own businesses. And all the respectable people are skewering him for it. 

I yield to few in my scorn and disregard for politicians and the institution they represent. But I tend to stick up for the ones the pundit priesthood decides to mock. 

The knee-jerk reaction from all the respectable people is to ridicule governors who don’t get with “the program”, in this case blindly following top-down guidance from medical bureaucrats basking in new-found fame. 

But are there really no viable approaches between keg parties at the rest home and tumbleweeds on Peachtree? Are no scalpels available? Must we only use cleavers?

When popular opinion quickly coalesces around one perspective…especially one that any normal person would have thought ludicrous ten minutes ago…I instinctively reach for the safety lock on my revolver.

And sure enough, the meddling ninnies who sneered at anyone who was skeptical of house arrest are now in arms against any notion of “opening up”. Indoctrination happens fast in the age of Facebook and Nextdoor.

Even the expression “open up” is loaded. It assumes undelegated power to the usurper. A better word is “liberate”, in this case by removing the pillow the State pressed on the economy’s face. Like a fine wine, a healthy economy needs to breathe. Cork it for too long, and it sours. Eventually, it goes down the drain.

As Ayn Rand put it, you can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

Every business-owner has a natural right to decide whether to unlock his doors. If invited, potential customers can decide whether to go in. The vulnerable can remain sheltered, the risk-averse can stay away. Not long ago, this would go without saying.

Free people don’t need sanctimonious satraps to prescribe reasonable precautions. They have the most incentive and insight to assess their own situation, gauge their personal risk, and act accordingly. Many would get infected. Some would die. Just like under the current extreme policy. Or during any infectious season. Or any time at all.

But the vast majority would be fine, and could continue their lives with minimal disruption. We wouldn’t have arrogant busybodies deeming some of us “essential” and others not. Antibodies could more quickly develop, and the effect of the contagion could dissipate. 

And those with afflictions other than coronavirus wouldn’t suffer delayed diagnoses, scans, and treatment for diseases that kill far more than this bug. Will a potential backlog of suspended cases create a curve worth flattening? No one knows. But does anyone care? Assessment of trade-offs is kept at a strict social distance.

The initial rationale for placing people’s lives on hold was to not overwhelm hospitals. We now hear that many are half-empty. Some are starting to re-schedule elective surgery. So, naturally…the goalposts have moved.

Now, arbitrary death targets determine when the shackles come off. But mortality is well below frightening forecasts from models that assumed severe sheltering-in-place. And almost all deaths had underlying conditions. Most people are not susceptible to this. Yet the “emergency” continues.

What gives? Cui bono?

This isn’t a plague worthy of Periclean Athens or 14th Century France. Why is the sane response to what is amounting to a bad version of the flu to strip everyone of his rights? And why is the sane response to that response not to raise at least one eyebrow and a few pitchforks?

After decimating countless lives based on models and projections that were spectacularly wrong, the burden of proof should run the other way. Unfortunately, it would have a head-on collision with too many inflated egos and invested emotions.

What elected or anointed public “servant” will admit error when his misguided directives damaged so many? As always, their only recourse is to proclaim that things would have been much worse without them.

Even if we grant them their self-serving interpretation, we should beware. C.S. Lewis had a point when he observed that “of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive… those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

Corruption has accelerated. Men in masks used to rob the banks. Now they sit in Congress, and funnel fake money to them, among other corporate cronies. But where do our ”representatives” gather this largesse? We see the source in the mirror. Or is that a dinner tray? As they say in Chicago, if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.

The impact on the economy – i.e., the sustenance, dreams, transactions, and aspirations of millions of people – is bad enough. But, like comparisons to the flu, we’re no longer allowed to raise that concern. Any contextualizing of the situation is forbidden.

Even if we can’t lament vaporizing the economy, other ramifications are also ominous under what we are being conditioned to accept as (to use a creepy expression) the “New Normal”.

In that world, intimate gatherings and large crowds are suspect.  Routine pleasantries risk going the way of the handwritten letter. Neighbors in supermarkets are treated like strangers in a dark alley. Eyes drop, heads turn, distance is kept. 

We fear getting pollen in our nose or a frog in our throat. The resultant sneeze or cough provokes whispers and glares akin to a Rosary infiltrating Queen Elizabeth’s court. Even visits to family and friends elicit apprehension. Or, in some places, arrest.

Reluctance replaces reflex as a hand is extended or an embrace offered. Reciprocating either gesture becomes an act of civil disobedience. Snitching is applauded and surveillance welcomed. Suicide hotlines ring off the hook. Far too many don’t get thru.

As the days pass and the data comes in, it’s becoming clear that this ranks among our government’s great colossal blunders. And, like the Top of the Mark, that’s a pretty high bar.

There. I’m glad I got that off my chest. Now my wife is not alone thinking I’m insane! But at least I can enjoy my weekend. Maybe I’ll go bowling. Or get a massage.

At home, our younger son continues to hone his skill, and the smell of baked goods wafts thru the house. Books and movies beckon.

Neighborhood walks, backyard gardening, and deck-chair Chardonnays draw us outside.

One thing I won’t do is get back in a tree. But I will stay close to the vine. 

JD