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.

 

 

Sometimes a Mask is Not Just a Mask

CoVid.  Here is what we know:  it is an easily transmittable, airborne virus that has no cure and no vaccine and unknown long term effects; it can kill you or you can have it and be completely asymptomatic.   Given that bottom line you can assess its risk to you in any given situation in the same way that you assess other risks that you face every day.   And we do face many other deadly risks every day.  So why the obsession and continuing hysteria about CoVid?  I suggest that it is not really much about CoVid at all, but a lot about using CoVid as a political football. 

Marco Rubio correctly states that having a rational response to the virus “will be hard to achieve as long as we have a heavily politicized narrative that demands you to pick one of two views.”  He defines these as:

A.      The virus is the apocalypse and everything must close

B.     The virus is being exaggerated and will go away on its own.

Certainly these are decent descriptions of the two narratives, neither of which, by the way, is factually accurate.  But let’s consider the reasons behind these two narratives and what each represents.

From the very first notice we got of the virus and that it had reached our shores, the Democrats, never ones to let a crisis go to waste, saw it as something to be used against President Trump and his supporters. 

In January, our economy was at record levels, Black and minority unemployment at its lowest ever, new businesses and industry were thriving, things were looking pretty good.  I suspect that the possibility that this might end caused some anti-Trumpers to salivate. 

The President stopped travelers entering from China, then Europe, then elsewhere.  His opponents first attacked that move as racist, then complained that he had not done it soon enough.  Democrats began their calls for investigations or even another impeachment for the early handling of the virus. 

CoVid was indeed scary.  No one knew much about it except that it could be deadly, especially for older people or people with underlying conditions.   Those seriously affected would need ventilators and hospital beds and we would need a seemingly endless supply of masks for medical personnel.  We wanted to test everyone.  We needed to avoid a surge of the virus so large that it would overtax our resources. 

So, while the administration went to work ramping up the manufacture of needed supplies (many of which had been allowed to deplete during prior administrations) and setting up military field hospitals (many of which have gone unused), people were urged and/or ordered to stay at home in order to  “flatten the curve.”

The President had daily briefings with his CoVid team during which the doctors and other officials could inform the public of the actual facts about the virus – facts that properly evolved daily as more information was constantly being acquired.  The Democrats objected to these briefings, asserting that they should not be covered or carried live by the media (apparently they did not want the people to be informed from the sources, but only to hear their edited and often misleading takes on the briefings).

The stimulus proposals that had been and continue to be put forth by Democrats contained many items that went well beyond what was necessary to deal with the short term effect of a closed economy and were actually part of their Leftist/Socialist wishlist.  That’s not to say that the Republicans didn’t also see these stimulus measures as a way to gain favor with small businesses and other key members of their base.

As things seemingly came under control and active cases began to level off, there were calls to open back up.  Complete closure could not continue.  It was devastating to the economy as well as to the psyche of many.  So we began a slow opening – too slow for some, too fast for others.  Each governor determined the rules for their state (this is their power and right under our system of government).  Here is where I suggest it really became far too political. 

The hit CoVid took on the economy erased the incredible numbers that the Trump administration had achieved.  So, is it really surprising that many Democrat states maintained far more shut down restrictions than those of their Republican counterparts?  Surely at least in the back of their minds was the thought that if we can keep the economy down and unemployment up it will hurt Trump in the upcoming election.  At the same time, Trump and the Republicans wanted to get things moving again and were perhaps more willing to throw some caution to the wind in order to revitalize the economy.  Both were looking somewhat at the science, but also at the politics of the situation.

The governors’ restrictions quickly became both ridiculous and hypocritical.  Science often did not seem to match what was and was not allowed.  The New Mexico governor said breweries (where beer is both brewed and then served in a bar-like atmosphere) could open, but bars could not, nor could the VFW halls which serve beer.  She noted that it was a different kind of clientele at the breweries (could she mean good hipster Democrats vs bad redneck Republicans?). 

The height of hypocrisy came when those governors who had begun mandating or at least encouraging masks cheered on protestors who gathered and said nothing about nor enforced the mask requirements.  In New York the virus contact tracers are not even allowed to ask about protest attendance.   At the same time as the protests were applauded for gathering large groups, Trump’s rally was condemned because it gathered people together.  This has nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics.

When the rules are applied to some but not to others, one can’t help but wonder if the rules are really necessary.  Statements of the dire nature of the threat and hence the need for dire restrictions does not match the fact that many restrictions are not enforced or are simply excused for the favored groups.  This credibility gap is sure to make one wonder about why one should believe any call for any regulations.  And, in our current climate it is not surprising that people should begin to suspect political motivation.

Then we have the reporting about the virus itself.  We now have much more data available, but sadly what that means is that only pieces of that data will be put forward depending on one’s political agenda.  If one wants to keep the country and its economy suffering you can surely find numbers that will support a demand for another complete shut down along with its damage to the economy and hopefully your political opponents.  If you want to see the country fast tracked to normal then you can find data that supports that as well.  Not only can data be found to support varying views, all data is subject to interpretation, and political interpretations are now the flavor du jour.

Not many people have the time or the education to fully read and then assess the data.  They rely on the news media for their information.  The news media seems to enjoy sustaining as much hysteria as possible.  It is probably good for its ratings.  It is also generally good for the Democrats whose political views the media tends to support.

Masks seem to have become the epicenter of all of this.  As we learned more about the virus, data more and more showed that the spread of the virus was in most instances via droplets spread through the air and not from surfaces.  Studies also began to teach how far the droplets could generally travel – somewhere around 6 feet in normal situations (more in other types of situations where a greater force is used in expelling air).  It also became apparent that the more time spent together and the larger the crowd, the more that one’s risk of being infected became.

The science clearly supports the fact that wearing a mask inhibits the possible spread of the disease by the wearer.  Wearing masks is done not for the wearer but for those with whom the wearer comes into contact.  The protection is not absolute, but it is significant.  One would think that just as one does other considerate gestures for his fellow man, one would wear a mask.

But, this is not about health and masks and civil behavior.  Mask wearing has become the representative of how much one will allow government to mandate certain behavior, of whether one is for or against big government, and probably a fairly good predictor of how one will vote in November.  For some reason the health requirement of wearing a mask is seen by some as a complete abolishment of all their rights.  They think that if government can tell them to wear a mask then government can tell them everything, including what to think.  And, when many Democrat leaders waive any suggestion of masks for BLM and other anti-government protestors, it is easy to see that political motivation has overtaken health concerns, even those that have scientific support.

This is a political battle that has become completely disconnected from the CoVid threat.  With that in mind, with their disconnect from science, governors have lost any credibility or authority to impose or enforce regulations.  In New Mexico, one city mayor simply called his prohibited 4^th of July parade a protest since the Governor had banned parades but endorsed and allowed protests.

With their credibility gone, the Governors (and some of the medical professionals) need to stop calling winners and losers in regard to what can and cannot open and what people can and cannot do.  We all know the risk.  Bottom line is we could die.  That’s the science and if we are given the actual science without the hyped and conflicting narratives, each of us individually can decide what in our life is worth taking that risk.

As to masks, I do believe we should wear them when in public just as we should all make the effort to social distance when possible.  I don’t think it is unreasonable for there to be, for the common good, some sort of mask requirement.   It is not fair to open everything, tell me it is my decision to take the risk, but then to make that risk greater than it should be by eliminating even the suggestion of masks.  That is, if a theater is open to full capacity, I can decide whether or not to go.  But, if no one there will be wearing a mask, it becomes unreasonably unsafe for me to be there and so, by removing even the suggestion of mask requirements I am actually denied more rights than those who would go maskless.

If we can assume that our fellow citizens will act responsibly – including wearing a mask not for their protection but for the protection of others – then we can indeed open back up and people will go where they choose depending on their individual risk assessments.  This is no different than when I make a decision to drive:  I understand that others on the road are expected to follow certain driving regulations that they may not like but that exist for the common good.  I of course know that some few will not, but I expect that most will and with that I am free to drive or not based on my assessment of the risk to me.  But, if I know that there are no driving regulations or that they will never be enforced or that a significant number of other drivers will refuse to follow those regulations, then my risk assessment and my freedom to drive is vastly diminished.   It is no different with masks.

But, it’s really not about any of this at all.  It’s about making a political statement.  That is what CoVid has become – nothing more than a political tool, a set of statistics to throw back and forth, a mask with which to stake one’s righteous political claim.   And, while we play these political games, the reality is that the apocalypse is not here, but CoVid is, and some people are in fact dying.