Why Shutdowns are Bad for Democracy

No, it is not the mask mandate, although it might be – we don’t know.  And that is one of the problems.

We have governors and now a presumptive president-elect who make proclamations about COVID-19 and masks and shutdowns for political reasons but which are based on half-truths and selected science.  The result is that we are being put into a mental slumber of unthinking in which we accept without question what we are told.

The mainstream news media, which seems to be where most people are getting their information, has an agenda.  That agenda for the last year has been to convince people that President Trump was getting it wrong about COVID-19.  

Government cannot fix everything.  The Trump administration has and with the vaccine continues to put a dent in the virus and our ability to treat those infected, but no government can cure it or make it go away.  Yet Democrats, rather than applaud successful efforts, choose to set up roadblocks and blame the President as if he had created the virus and intentionally set it upon us.  And governors continue to tell us that they would fix everything if only we would obey their dictates.

There are studies supportive of shutdowns and masks, but there are also serious scientific studies that question the usefulness of such measures.  See for example THIS 

Similarly, rather than pay attention to the scientific studies of the effectiveness of the vaccine, the MSM  jumped on the bandwagon when Kamala Harris proclaimed that the vaccine could not be trusted because it was developed during Trump’s presidency.  Now, when we have two vaccines showing 94 and 95 percent effectiveness, the narrative continues that it may not be trustworthy because it was developed during the Trump administration.

And there are the shutdowns and the mask mandates which come and go like the wind and are always riddled with irrational exceptions. 

Let’s remember that last spring we had a 3-week shutdown to SLOW THE SPREAD.  Not to completely eradicate the virus.  We always expected it would continue to be with us.  But now when the numbers go up in the slightest, we have to shut down all over again because apparently somehow we believe that some government official can just make it completely go away if we only do what he or she says.

About those numbers:  generally, the numbers given to justify government mandates are not complete.  Do you know if deaths due to COVID-19 but with underlying conditions were really caused by COVID-19 or by the underlying condition?  How is that determination made?  Are there incentives to count it as COVID-19?

What about infection rates?  Do more tests result in a higher or lower overall infection rate?  What about false positives and false negatives?  How many are there?  Why?  How do they affect the rates?

And the masks.  Did you know there are significant studies by credible scientific groups that deny the effectiveness of masks?  Why do these studies not get equal time?   Did you know that a study performed by the military resulted with a lockdown showing slightly greater infection rate than non-lockdown? (LINK )

Arbitrary and ever-changing shut down and similar rules can and do take a heavy negative toll on the populace.  Not only do small businesses and their employees take the brunt of economic devastation, but also the people in general suffer in ways that many would find worse than the virus. 

The repressive actions by many state governors seem to ignore such things as increased depression and suicide, increased spousal and family abuse, decline of academic and athletic training and skills at K-12 schools and colleges, the loss of a will to live in the elderly isolated in elder care homes, etc.

But far more catastrophic than the individual and specific events that we can point to is the effect that the shutdowns have on the soul of every individual and ultimately of our country as well.

Isolation is not natural for humans.  Sitting at home, even working at home, lacks the stimulation that occurs when we go out into the world.  That stimulation might be talking with a colleague at the coffee machine, or shopping, or having lunch with friends, or discussing any number of topics in a seminar or playing games inside or outside with friends or strangers or any number of the things humans typically do (or did before they were instilled with COVID-19 fear and threatened with lockdowns).

When one is left without real stimulation, with hours of essentially nothing to do except scroll through social media or stream videos on TV, one becomes sluggish in both body and mind.  An inertia sets in.  I can’t help but think of the description of “mental slumber” found in The Golovlyov Family by Saltykov-Shchedrin: “As she gazed she would think of nothing . . . .  She merely gazed and gazed, until a senile drowsiness began to hum in her ears again, veiling the fields, churches, villages and that distant trudging peasant in the mist.”

The Russian word for such inertia is oblomovshchina [Обломовщина] from the character in Goncharov’s Oblomov who spends the whole day just dreaming and lying on the couch.  In his book Dead Souls, Gogol also referred to such “lie-a-beds.”

We have this soul-deadening inertia being cultivated by our various governors and their lockdowns.  It is not healthy for us or for our democracy.

As any good communist, socialist, or Democrat will tell you, “never let a crisis go to waste.”  COVID-19 arriving on our shores was a crisis.  And the Democrats had no intention of letting it go to waste and continue to use it to suit their agenda.

They begin by generating a fear so great that it cripples logical thought.  Now yes, as with any dangerous thing, including a virus, a little fear or caution is a good thing.  But the fear mongering of the media and the left goes far beyond that as they created and continue to promulgate fear that reaches the level of hysteria about the virus. 

With hysteria and its emotional and illogical mates, comes a huge uncertainty.   Humans do not like uncertainty.  They look for something or someone that can provide certainty to their lives.

The state governors and other politicians make it clear that you must listen to them asserting that they are the only ones who have and understand all the information, and, being in a state of fear many people are willing to listen and accept without question.  They think the mandates will provide them the certainty they seek.

They do not question what that information is.  They do not question why it leads to the mandate being imposed.  They do not question what other information is available.  The people just blindly follow, the well instilled fear being that if they do not then they will certainly die. 

The people are learning to follow blind and often inconsistent and irrational mandates.  They are learning to accept what they are told without question.  They are learning to give up their freedom without question.

This does not mean that everything we are told is inaccurate or not useful, but to accept it without question is the very antithesis of democracy. 

Democracy requires a mind that is awake, that is able to question and to seek out all the evidence, that is energized by debate about information and policy.  It requires a soul that believes in itself and is self-reliant and innovative.  

The mental slumber in which the unquestioned mandates place us is the enemy of democracy, of free and fulfilling lives, of the true happiness and health that comes from being in charge of your own soul.

So, yes, COVID-19 is dangerous and even deadly for some.   For others it is less so.   We are human.  We can think.  We can understand the facts and evidence if it is fully provided to us.  We can take the precautions necessary for who we each are and can do what is necessary to help protect our neighbors. 

We do not need mandates that that are filled with holes like a slice of Swiss cheese.  We have minds and it is time that we started to use them, because if not, the “cure” for COVID-19 will be the death of us all.