The Abrogation of Science

Atlanta, GA

December 16, 2020

After all this time, and all we’ve been thru, you’d think a little curiosity would be called for, and some humility in order.

We read a couple days ago that the coronavirus has barely affected Africa, and caused no deaths in Cambodia. Not no deaths today…or last week…or last month. No deaths at all. Ever.

How can that be? Will anyone investigate? Does anybody care?

Based on how we’re incessantly lectured, you’d think it must be due to their wise governments, science-based directives, and devout compliance among their obedient people. 

As in the more “advanced” American states or “enlightened” European countries, the dutiful citizens of southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa must be keeping their distance, locking themselves down, and hiding behind masks.

Some east Asian countries did resort to lockdowns. But Cambodia didn’t. Nor did the African countries. Not that bureaucratic health agencies…looking at hyperbolic models rather than thru their own eyes…didn’t implore them to do so. 

Some countries (like Malawi, one of the poorest on earth) tried to enforce house arrest. But their people revolted, knowing they would starve if they didn’t. They made the right choice. COVID hasn’t been an issue there.

China clamped-down rigorously and wore masks ubiquitously. Japan kept most places open, and wore masks half-heartedly. Both places seem to be essentially back to normal. But Japan, despite having one of the oldest populations on earth, never endured a real “surge”. They avoided the plague without suffering the “cure”. How?

Illinois and Sweden both have long winters, and similar size populations that are heavily concentrated in single cities. The Swedes stayed open and discouraged masks. Illinoisans covered their faces and incarcerated themselves. 

Illinois should be thriving, and Sweden a giant cemetery. But the C-virus gathered more traction in the land of Lincoln than in that of Gustavus Adolphus.

Similarly when we juxtapose free South Dakota with its more oppressive neighbors: different tactics, comparable results. Only South Dakota spared itself the economic and spiritual anguish of its sister states.

Likewise, Florida is open, and California is a prison. Yet the Sunshine state has fewer “cases”, hospitalizations, and deaths per million than the Golden State…without the societal carnage.

Go figure.

But that’s the problem. Nobody will. Least of all our venerated “scientists”. They seem to be incapable. They can count, but they can’t figure.

Why is it that no matter what different governments decide to do, the results are basically the same, and often the opposite of what the “experts” project?

Maybe something aside from cartoon caricature drives the spread and severity of this virus. 

Maybe some countries had a degree of pre-existing immunity that shielded them regardless the policies put in place. 

Maybe government action isn’t the requisite medicine to slow or soften an illness. 

Maybe governments shouldn’t be involved in health at all. 

Maybe the virus is gonna do what the virus is gonna do, no matter what we do.

Maybe individuals, families, and businesses should be left free to assess their own risks. 

Maybe glib answers (“masks”, “lockdowns”, “restaurants”, “Thanksgiving”) don’t explain everything. 

Then what does? 

I don’t know either. But neither do the scientists. 

The real ones will admit it. Not as a shameful confession, but as rational reassurance. The last thing we want are scientists who already know the answers, who adhere to some sort of “consensus”, or who are silly enough to claim that there is one. 

Because there isn’t. Not just in epidemiology, but in any scientific endeavor. Any “scientist” who claims consensus is a hack or a quack.

Science is a search, not a summit. But the last ten months, its self-proclaimed acolytes have driven us into a ditch. We’ve suffered social science, not real science. We’ve endured public health, not genuine health. In matters of government policy, the descriptors “social” and “public” are misleading and duplicitous. Like shots of vodka before a marriage proposal, they tend to invalidate the words they precede.

Even the Washington Post (!) reported last week that there have been no documented cases of COVID transmitted from surfaces. None. Yet maniacal use of disinfectant and disposable menus continues. That may be a waste of time and resources, but it certainly isn’t based on any data.

For most of this infernal fiasco, we’ve been told to stay home, keep apart, remain masked, and “follow the science”. Where has it led us?

Let’s review.

First, we were ordered to stay home for just fifteen days, to “flatten the curve”. 

At the time, people weren’t sure what they were dealing with, so they played along.

Then, inevitably, we were told to remain locked inside just a few more weeks, to “slow the spread”. 

Seemed a bit excessive. But OK. 

Then, when most hospitals were empty and many were laying off staff, the objective shifted from preserving capacity to preventing deaths. 

At that point, antennas should have gone up. But still, few flinched. Closures, cancellations, and “distancing” persisted. Second homes sheltered the elites, the internet sustained the middle class, and government checks calmed the rubes. Small business remained shuttered, while large ones with influence and lobbyists grabbed share or bailouts. Or both. For whatever reason, “science” always seems to favor well-connected insiders.

When deaths declined, single-minded focus shifted to reducing “cases”, whatever those are. No matter the reliability of the tests, the severity of the symptoms, or the susceptibility of a population, life was to remain suspended for everyone till positive diagnoses were curtailed. 

Suddenly, no one was “healthy”. We were all either “symptomatic”, “asymptomatic”, “pre-symptomatic”, or “post-symptomatic”. To any reasonable observer, the whole thing was sick.

Meanwhile, trade-offs and collateral damage continued to be ignored. Yet, as Ayn Rand said, you can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

Livelihoods deteriorated, depression flourished, tuberculosis proliferated, starvation spread, cancer and heart disease went unchecked, the elderly withered, children languished, and suicides spiked.

As the heat rose and summer intensified, liberty kept melting away…like ice on a Phoenix sidewalk.

Soon came periodic intimations that life could resume. But only after we had a vaccine. Meanwhile, we needed to keep acting like paranoid germaphobes, treating every human breath as if it were a potential poison.

A few days ago, we learned that even a vaccine may not be enough. The New York Times last week told us that even those receiving a shot would need to remain masked. Apparently, vaccinated people might still spread the pestilence even if they are spared its symptoms.

But if that’s the case, why stop at masking? Every other rain dance the witch doctors prescribe should continue as well. The article doesn’t say that, but that’s the obvious implication. We must keep hiding faces, closing businesses, and confining ourselves even after receiving a vaccine. 

Why wouldn’t we? If vaccinated people remain potential weapons, shouldn’t they be concealed? Like a handgun, will each of us need a permit to be in public? 

At the least, we’re being acclimated to the idea of “health passports” if we want to wander around our new Orwellian world. To enter a store, board a plane, or go to work, we will need our “papers please.”

So again, as they have all year, the goal posts keep moving. At some point, the players may start to realize there’s no end zone, and that the coaches don’t know what the hell they’re doing.

Or, more insidiously…perhaps they do. It may just be that their objective is not what they want us to think it is.

That government officials in December 2020 are still prohibiting indoor dining, demanding cancellation of events, closing schools, and ordering people to stay home reveals conclusively that neither science nor health has anything to do with this. 

Real science has not only been masked, it’s been gagged. It debunked these ham-fisted, one-size-fits-all, tyrannical remedies in April, after they were rigorously enforced. If they worked, why would we need to do them again? If they didn’t, why would we want to?

Maybe the real question isn’t whether these dehumanizing measures work. Rather, it should be what are they really intended to do? Are they about containing a virus…or controlling us? 

These idiotic directives, like ordering healthy people to wear masks, stay home, and avoid each other, are about obedience and compliance, not “science.” At least not medical science.

But perhaps these edicts actually are based on another sort of science…that of propaganda, control, and manipulation. The psychological tactics that have been successfully deployed this year are sinister in their effect, ominous in their historical impact, and disquieting by their recent success.

In March, they lulled the sheep into the chute…two weeks at a time. Had they told us then that lockdowns would persist the rest of the year and that masks would be mandatory, no one would have gone for it. So they slowly reduced resistance.

Most people were willing to tolerate two weeks. But then, like an anesthetic from an IV, the increments dripped endlessly on, till complacency set in. First came another two weeks. Then they upped the dosage: they added a month…and then another. Then the rest of the year. 

When this started, we were told it could be over by Easter. Now they’re gunning for Christmas, with no guarantees we’ll be allowed next Easter! Even with a vaccine, we’re being groomed to accept that this could go on indefinitely.

How, in what was once a reasonably free country, could this happen? Unfortunately, it wasn’t very difficult.

Fear is a potent weapon, and governments know how to wield it. After scaring the hell of of people, the powers-that-be served up the notion that security is more important than liberty. And the people lapped it up. 

Then came the canard…farcical on its face to any small business owner losing his livelihood, teenager stripped of his youth, or nursing home resident isolated in his cell…that “we’re all in this together”, and that anyone who wasn’t was to be shamed and shunned. Officials successfully stirred people to be more suspicious of each other than they are of their authorities. Frightened citizens were convinced to sacrifice their freedom to the god of the “greater good”, and on the altar of “science”.

People have been encouraged to snitch on their neighbors, and to police each other like suburban Stasi. Peer pressure and cultural coercion do the rest. Most of those who might resist a current won’t fight the tide. To avoid the hassle, they go with the flow.

Before long, the subjects no longer need to be told what to do. They are convinced to do it themselves. The rats instinctively make their way thru the maze, despite there being no cheese. 

Having been conditioned to fear each other, they voluntarily stay apart. Gatherings become limited, and events are rare. Handshakes and hugs…instinctive gestures of friendship and affection…disappear. Even smiles hide behind an anonymizing cloth. And a callous conformity coats the culture, like soot covering a bed of roses.

For some groups of people, this virus, like many others, is dangerous, and potentially lethal. For most, it is relatively inconsequential. But official reaction to it has been criminal. Governments have usurped undelegated authority, and arbitrarily deprived people the freedom to decide how best to live their lives…just as our “leaders” have been doing with theirs.

Many of our pharaonic class betray by their actions the phoniness of their words. They themselves don’t fear this virus, or believe what they tell us. After ordering everyone else to stay home, they enjoy crowded meals in fine restaurants, travel great distances on family vacations, pamper themselves in exclusive salons, and wear masks only when they think the camera is on. They are American Bourbons, without the conscience of their French predecessors. In less than a year, they have destroyed a society to enhance their power.

As we do with any other respiratory ailment, we should drop the sanctimony, dispense with condemnation, and use common sense. Then, as befits a free society, we can let people assess their own risks, make their own decisions, and live their own lives. And not denigrate or excoriate them when they do.

Arrogant officials expected from us the patience of St Sebastian. For the better part of a year, they got it. At this point, we’ve taken enough arrows. After enduring the greatest public health catastrophe of all time, we need to fire back.

COVID is about politics, not science. Science seeks rebuttal, facilitates correction, and spurs progress. Politics resists refutation, reinforces mistakes, and shifts culpability. The corrupt politicians who caused this catastrophe cannot bring themselves to bear responsibility for it. 

True scientists, real statesmen, and free people would never have allowed it to happen.

JD