“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation,” wrote the 20th-century English philosopher and political activist Bertrand Russell, “can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.” Our lingering experience with the pandemic proves the truth of his words. Governors like Tom Wolf, Gavin Newsom, Andrew Cuomo, and the inimitable Gretchen Whitmer appear to be enjoying a sustained serotonin high as they drive families and friends apart, wreck businesses, steal livelihoods, deny us our freedoms, and negate our basic humanity while they go about their privileged lives. There is outright cruelty in what they’re doing to us.
For virtually all of 2020, it has been COVID all day, every day, 24/7, as new cases “soar” and the death toll mounts. That’s the sum total of the news dinned into us by the country’s propaganda organs. It’s substantially free of any scientific data or analysis to enable us to understand the true nature of the disease and react to it rationally. Can a flu that has a 99.87 percent survivability rate really be so fearsome as to merit wrecking a nation’s economy and turning its citizens into submissive ciphers afraid to stand up for their rights or defend their human dignity? We now have a COVID vaccine. News of treatments, such as hydroxychloroquine, is being allowed to circulate. But what’s really killing us is our elected wannabe dictator leaders who have seriously compromised the nation’s democratic auto-immune system, better known as the Constitution. It’s something to reflect on as we celebrate the holiday season lockdowns.
Craig Bridgman
Connecticut
