The coronavirus pandemic is not a political issue and I wish
people would stop treating it that way. I happen to think that our President has for the most part done
and is doing a good job handling this complex problem. I also happen to think that my state governor,
a progressive Democrat, is doing an outstanding job. This is not a political issue and we do not
need political rhetoric clouding things up.
This pandemic and its effects are complex. This is not a simple issue with a right and
wrong answer. It is a new issue that
this country, this world, has never faced before. No one has all the answers, and everyone is
learning as we go along. Learning is a
key word here. Everyone who wants to
spout an opinion on this issue should take some time to educate him or herself
about it first. That means facts, not
anecdotal evidence from one satisfied or dissatisfied person or business owner
or victim of the virus. And not
following in the approach that so many currently take to newsworthy issues
which is to simply spout the rhetoric of one or the other political parties.
There is a term NPC which originally referred to a non-playable
character in a video game; that is, a character with whom other players can
interact but which can only repeat programmed lines – it cannot think for itself. The term has come to be used for those
political minions who similarly do not think for themselves but only repeat
programmed phrases – that is, they spout the party line without thought.
NPCs have been around for a while. Now they
spout their party’s politically correct phrases and positions about the
coronavirus pandemic. I used to see NPCs
as primarily a Democrat phenomenon. They
would stick to their programmed dialog even when simple common sense proved it to
be ridiculous. For example, during the
Kavanaugh hearings the Democrat NPCs all asserted that “women must always be
believed when they claim sexual assault, even if there is no evidence to confirm
their story and even evidence to contradict it.” Now, with a seemingly credible allegation
against Biden, the program has been changed to “all women must be believed, but
only if they are accusing a Republican; when they accuse a Democrat we can
dismiss their claim post haste.”
But now I cannot help but see the assault of NPCs and their
programmed views coming from every political persuasion. The Democrats and Anti-Trumpers first assert
their same tired complaints: President Trump
is destroying the country, he does not know what he is doing, and, more
specific to the virus – he is killing people. They also assert that everything he does
violates and/or destroys the Constitution and our government. He acted too late. He acted too early. He should not let the governors decide. He cannot make any national orders. He must make national orders. And, of course, he must be investigated. Don’t ask the folks making these assertions
to explain or support them – they cannot.
The only truth underlying them is that they either don’t like the
President or don’t like his policies, or both.
But we also have the Republican NPCs. Their current mantra is “Open Now!” They have supplementary statements that they assert
in support of this demand: Closing
businesses violates our rights; people have the right to choose; shut down
orders violate the Constitution, not opening now will destroy the Constitution,
the economy, and our country. Do they
have the science or the economics or the legal scholarship to prove any of
that? Of course not. Sure, closing down and staying home orders do
interfere with some rights or at least some activities, but they do so and are
allowable for the public good. These
Republican NPCs have apparently conveniently forgotten that part of civics
class – it seems to not be a part of their programmed lines. (They have also
forgotten their old mantra of “we don’t need anything from the government” as
they hold out their hands for stimulus and other benefits).
All these programmed assertions do nothing more than to
prove some sort of ignorance, or at least an inability or disinclination to
think things through. For example, one
cannot end with “just open up and let people choose whether to stay home, wear
masks, etc.” This reveals so much about what the asserter
does not know. First, the point of
staying home, wearing masks, is to keep those who are asymptomatic from
spreading the disease to others (and, if they bothered to look at facts they
would know that huge percentages of us are asymptomatic, which is why we need
things like sufficient testing and other data before opening up). They would also understand that even if one
is free to stay home, that might be a difficult choice if opening up means one
has to choose between returning to a job or losing it by staying home. These NPCs often claim they are demanding
opening now for the workers, but would that really help those workers? They claim decisions about what to open/close
are unfair, but they do not have the details upon which these decisions were
made; such assertions are just part of their politically programmed speech.
We have a pandemic involving a virus for which there is no
treatment or cure and no vaccine. It
threatens the Public health of everyone in the country. We
have experts who update data and projections daily as they determine and
regularly revise, based on new information, the best way to handle this public
health crisis. In order to flatten the
curve – which was necessary so as not to overload healthcare and thus make the
effects of the pandemic far worse – stay at home orders and business closures
were put into place. Of course these
affected the economy and now those same experts are recommending a safe, data-driven
and measured re-opening of business.
They provide clear criteria and a wealth of data to help each Governor
make decisions and a reopening plan for his or her state.
NPCs are not interested in facts or data. Here, by the way, is the link to a cite that
provides a wealth of data, updated daily, about the corona virus, including
state by state statistics and projections.
LINK. Interestingly, when I
shared this with a social media discussion about the virus populated mostly with
NPC-type statements, the entire conversation was suddenly deleted. Perhaps no one is really interested in facts.
Generally, in this country we of late seem to suffer from a wealth
of people who think they are experts on everything or at least anything about
which they have an opinion. Yet they do
not educate themselves about that which they are opining. Many of them are actually NPCs. They
are often wrong or incomplete in their statements and often insufferable in
their thinking or lack thereof. But
annoying as it can be, such false belief in one’s own knowledge is usually not harmful;
certainly not deadly. Not so when we
look at the coronavirus.
Those false experts who are demanding anything and
everything from opening fully now to never opening again, from asserting we
must have more and more money forever to compensate those possibly injured by the
virus or its economic effects to those
who would deny any and all financial aid, from those who see every well thought
out cautionary and temporary restriction as the end of our Constitution and our
life as we know it to those who assert that now is the time that mandates a complete
restructuring of our government, all of these programmed assertions spoken
without thought or support are dangerous.
We need to get the solution to this problem right. We need to intelligently balance the health
dangers with the economy. This requires
understanding and thought. It cannot be
done by NPCs. Yet it is the voices of
the NPCs who are at times drowning out those reasoned expert voices that we
need.
There are those in this country who take the time to educate
themselves about the science of the disease, who take the time to look at and
understand facts, and to think for themselves.
These are the people who are looking at data, who are looking at various
measured guidelines for reopening, who are understanding that it is a delicate
balance between protecting the people from this serious health risk and from keeping
the economy in a position where it can return to “normal” without too much hurt
and delay when the time is right.
These people stand in stark contrast to the NPCs who simply
spout politically driven opinions and demands about the virus and the
economy. Their leaders of course are
trying to capitalize politically in any way possible from this pandemic and its
effects on both health and economy.
Their leaders will use it to push their agendas and to trash those of
their opponents as well as the opponents themselves. The NPCs are their necessary minions.
NPCs and self-proclaimed experts (often one and the same) need
to simply shut up until they are willing to actually think. We all need to use our brains and our common
sense to understand what is going on, to accept reasonable restrictions and
inconveniences, and support all of our leaders as they do their best to get
this right. What we do not need to
accept, and indeed should ignore, are the politically driven NPCs and their unhelpful
and potentially dangerous comments.
