Give me liberty or give me…

Monday, May 25, 2020

Almost from the day the governor closed down the state I thought there was something wacky about our reaction to what is largely a serious flu epidemic.

(Don’t let propaganda COVID-19 is influenza).

Why is government seizing civil liberties because of an outbreak that strongly resembled several others that I have lived through my life.

Of course, the idea that the Democrats might have hijacked an epidemic in order to win a national election did occur to me. I just didn't think that even Democrats – as despicable as they have been since the 2016 election-- would sink as low as that even after the Kavanaugh catastrophe and three failed attempts to impeach Trump. It is one thing to try to impugn the reputation of a single man and to lie and cheat and steal and do everything to bring down a president, it is quite another thing to stand on the bones of American citizens to regain power.

It wasn't until one of those political shysters I typically talk to told me how much this pandemic was different from others and non-political but I began to suspect this was a Hail Mary pass by a desperate party seeking to seize control.

This is not to say the pandemic isn't serious it is.

I’m saying that the reaction is hysterical even by government standards.

And to believe that government has decided it has the Godlike power to control a virus is terribly discombobulating.

It's one thing to control plastic bags to save sea turtles or to ban hair spray to save the ozone, it's quite another thing to shut down the economy in order to keep us safe from a flu.

But the egomaniacs who we had elected they possibly actually think they are doing a good thing by destroying American principles in order to protect us from this plague.

I would rather believe that we have a pack of nincompoops for government officials rather than a democratic plot that would bury our grandparents in order to regain the White House.

But after the last 4 years of watching America go hysterical over an election, I suspect political fools may be capable of doing anything for political power.

At first -- after poo-pooing the idea that Democrats might have brought down the economy deliberately -- I thought this might be some kind of test.  We have anticipated a biological attack on America by terrorist for years but have only really done tabletop exercises as to how government would react and better yet to gauge the reaction of real people in a real attack.

I thought maybe there was actual intelligence behind the government's reaction and that they would look to this to see how the economy faired and how people would respond.  Would we Riot the way our Irish ancestors did in New York when Lincoln sent their kids off to die in the Civil War?  And would this result in a list of people who would become the ringleaders of opposition?

 As it turns out, years of brainwashing in public schools appears to have had a calming effect in that people reacted the way the government appears to want them to have -- like sheep.

 If you have a compliant media turning up the volume about the deaths that happened without showing that most of them happened in nursing homes and appeared to be the result of government action,  sending sick into the most vulnerable populations rather than sending resources in to keep them safe the least vulnerable of the population – people will then be terrified into believing they will die too.

Unfortunately, I have seen people died in past pandemics especially the 1969 pandemic that killed more than a hundred thousand Americans and infected over a million worldwide.  Nobody tried to shut down the economy; nobody stomped on American civil liberties. Back then leaders actually tried to help people who might be at risk rather than exert social control to protect people who are unlikely to come down with this death grip.

Now as the pandemic winds down like all pandemic in the past have, I'm still uncertain about the motivation behind the Hysteria.

We have stupid people still doing stupid things such as mocking people who refuse to wear masks, still worse rioting in stores or reporting them to the authorities.

I always wondered how good Germans in the 1930s could be taken in by fascist.  How could they be so gullible as to follow a line of thought that eventually led to the Holocaust?

Now I know.

 It is no longer a choice between Give me liberty or give me death.

 We now live in a society where people are so terrified of dying that they don't even consider Liberty worth dying for.

 I guess if there is a list of agitators in this test of social control did my name is probably near the top.

I’m proud of that.