Living With Covid Hysteria

Continuing on with being unsilenced, 

My husband and I survived a mild case of Covid the first two weeks of July. We did not show the normal signs but 11 days in, he went to his doctor who took blood. A week later his test showed that he had the antibodies but even the doctor could not say whether this constituted immunity or not. No one really knows what is going on or how to deal with it because there is so much conflicting statistics and opinions. 

Historically speaking hysteria and fear are great manipulators.

Being a history buff, I prefer to look at previous similar conditions and outcomes to balance out my opinions and personal choices.

Picking one example of the Swine Flu (H1N1) that was first detected in the US in spring of 2009 - according to the CDC:

During the pandemic, CDC provided estimates of the numbers of 2009 H1N1 cases, hospitalizations and deaths on seven different occasions. Final estimates were published in 2011. These final estimates were that from April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010 approximately 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (8868-18,306) occurred in the United States due to pH1N1. 

I have to point out that 60+ million is a pretty big number and yet I do not recall any overt hysteria, no mask wearing mandates, no closing down of the economy. But then this was under Obama’s watch so there was no political reason to destroy the world.

The following is contributed by anonymous and I think it brings some common sense and perspective to this topic.

For Him,

Meema

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One of my friends has told me that she thinks I’m not taking COVID seriously enough, and as such, she felt the need to “hide” my posts. She didn’t appreciate that we went on vacation or that we visited my family. That’s okay. And since we live in America, she is entitled to her opinion. 

While we do choose to take many precautions, like C.S. Lewis states below, “it need not dominate our minds.”  And it’s my goal for COVID to indeed, NOT dominate my mind. 

Lewis states: 

“In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb, when it comes, find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”

— “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948) in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays

The Elephant and Social Justice

If you assembled a random, diverse group of twelve people together and asked them, “What does Social Justice look like?” Would you expect to get a consensus? Would you get mostly similar answers with variations based on individual biases/experiences? Would you get some unexpectedly passionate answers?

Would you find that some answers were vague and perhaps more idealistic than realistic?

Would it be not unlike the blind men describing the elephant by the small parts they could touch?

Social Justice, as a war cry, has done a predictable number on the gullible American people (all ethnicities included). Since we have been carefully conditioned for decades to accept that being ‘good’ and ‘fair’ is our mandate to make up for any and all success we might have achieved, we are ripe for shame manipulation. If we have built businesses we are especially called upon to step up to the demands of virtue signaling or risk being boycotted. But, just as one can’t define ‘love’ and ‘hate’, you can’t really pinpoint a specific definition for goodness and fairness either. Like gender, nowadays, these are fluid conditions and depend on who, and under what circumstances, is interpreting. 

To one, Social Justice might mean laws put in place to protect and insure that no one is discriminated against based on race, gender, age, or religion. Of course, that was done with the passing of the Civil Rights Law of 1964. 

Someone else might say that Social Justice represents zero police brutality. Does that mean that no one, even if they resist arrest, should be man-handled? Does it mean no perp because of color should ever be arrested for theft, assault, rape, child abuse, or murder because some overly zealous cop might get too rough? 

Does Social Justice mean minorities should be given extra help up the ladder by putting pressure on companies to fill a ‘color quota’ such as Affirmative Action? Does it mean that minorities of color should be allowed to go to the head of the line of college applicants and be exempt from taking SATs and ACTs? 

Does Social Justice require that laws be put in place that can be interpreted loosely to fit situations that point to specific racist based hate? How does that work? How do you determine that a crime/offense was specifically committed based on hate and, if that were even possible, what difference does it make anyway? Is not all crime based in some kind of hate? How close are we to the Thought Police stage of our development?

If Social Justice was a real thing that we could actually agree on, would we all be required to take sensitivity training classes so that we could get better in touch with our good and fair sides? Would we already be living in Utopia where unicorns and butterflies chase each other under a big rainbow? 

When the riots started I noticed an uptick in heartfelt posts in social media asking us to just love one another. To take a test to really examine ourselves and expose our hidden racism, the classic call to our ‘good’ and ‘fair’ sides. But, frankly, I decided it was time to set the blue pill aside. I’m not racist nor ever have been but I am tribal, like most humans. I love my tribe. We are no different that any other American family. When we have a gathering of friends and family we are uniquely inclusive. However, we have always invited those we know and allow for new folks to be able to invite guests to join. This open invitation has allowed us to broaden our circle over time. Would Social Justice mean that we should go out into the dark alleys of downtown Atlanta and invite drug addicts, gang members and career criminals to attend one of our parties in the interest of diversity, goodness and fairness? I think not for obvious reasons but does that make us racist or just prudent?

I live honorably as best I can, for one thing, because I abide by my Christian tenets which supersede most manmade laws. I understand that humans are naturally more comfortable with their own kind but who, if standing by certain values, have no ill will against any other person, regardless of race. How ironic that Christianity is one of the most vilified religions in the world and is now threatened with being erased and yet holds the very principles that define real Social Justice and is about as close as we will ever come. 

Social Justice begins and ends with individual accountability or it is just an illusion devised to herd us toward a dark agenda. Those with such agendas will continue to play us though, regardless our race, for all it’s worth, and apparently they count on us being too busy being good and fair and thus blind to see the whole elephant.

For Him,

Meema

MAGA

In keeping with my concern for the many who feel they no longer are allowed to speak lest they be called racist or worse, I’m going to selectively start publishing other people’s thoughts here, those who feel they have been silenced. This is not an invitation to debate or disagree, there are plenty of other places where the trending mainstream consciousness can float and air itself. This is a safe space for conservative opinion. 

This is my stand now - the hill I choose to die on. American history, the thing the anarchists are  now actively seeking to erase, was built on the sacrifice of many good and righteous people. I can do no less. I guess I always knew the day would come.

For Him,

Meema

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What I want to say is about something I keep hearing that anyone who wears a MAGA hat is open game to being assaulted and in this frenzied political climate it’s seen as not only okay but somehow heroic. The censorship on social media now is openly hypocritical and biased. This says to me that hypocrisy is running the show nowadays, that it demands, even as it shouts diversity and tolerance and “LOVE”, anyone who dares to have a different view from the liberal narrative is basically a deplorable moron. That is absolutely crazy, nothing even close to Christian principals, and completely unAmerican. But it seems like hating America is the new virtue signaling now. That is not just crazy that is self destruction waiting to happen. I want to share a few thoughts on the idea what Make America Great Again really means. It does not mean white supremacy, by the way. Not even close. I don’t care who claims it.

I’ve heard the question, what era should we return to to make American great again? What era was America ever great? It’s a good question and did make me think back to all the American history that I know and it was hard to find a time when America was great if you think being great means being perfect. Then I thought that Americans have been through a lot in our relatively short history and during times of serious struggles and hardships, though, there was always that American thing that has gotten us through it all and has always made America great and the envy of the world because it comes back even stronger from its trials.

That’s when it occurred to me that the question is all wrong. Make America Great Again, is not asking us to return to a great era, it’s saying we need to get back to the fundamental premise of America that made this a uniquely great nation. The premise is stated clearly in our Constitution - We The People. We are all Americans first and that has nothing to do with our skin color or financial status, or ancestral heritage. Americans first is not racist or nationalist, it’s human to want to be proud of the country you have built your life in.

If America is so bad why do so many people from so many nations want to be here and would risk coming illegally to get here with nothing in their pockets? The only answer I can come up with is that America is still seen as the land of opportunity. Few other countries, especially not those under socialism or communism, offer the chance to every individual to rise up, to succeed, to better oneself. Opportunity to rise up is not a handout though. It’s a challenge to become all that you are willing to strive to be. It takes hard work and effort. It often takes sacrifice and willingness to take all or nothing risk. America has always encouraged and been proud of its individuals with the entrepreneurial spirit who go from nothing to something. Why? Because those are true heroes who really do something good for themselves and everyone.   They actually do something positive that benefits many. They aren’t career thugs elevated to sainthood as the icon for a made up cause that pretends it cares about certain people. Seems to me, as Americans, we have been so played because we are so naive. 

It’s true that the history of the building of this country is filled with bad players doing bad things but all that is balanced out by all the good players, the hard workers, those who chose individual effort over being paid to remain in poverty just to secure their votes. That is a form of slavery and those locked into that system today don’t even know it. There are many ways to be a slave. Drug addiction is slavery too. The cartels and drug dealers are the masters of those. 

Those who choose to think for themselves are the ones who have made America great and they come from every ethnicity. It wasn’t color or social status that has made America first in so many categories of life, it has been individual determination to become better as they have been assisted by nothing more than the freedom to try. Make America Great Again is about being free to try. That’s all. America has always been great if for no other reason than because it is the land of the free, not to mention the brave. What is wrong with that? Why are we forgetting that just to appease those who have been given carte blanc to destroy our cities, demand we be fired for daring to speak out?

The American ideology is what we need to get back to, not some specific era. Those who have wished to stop the success of America will do anything to destroy us and these include many who have achieved great success and amassed great wealth by using the uniquely American Thing. This includes quite a few lifetime politicians who have built their wealth on American taxpayers. I admit I don’t understand it, and never will, but I do see that it is an agenda, whether something super sinister or just bad humans being bad. My only hope is that God will hear our prayers to save us from this attack and senseless mob rule that so many are bowing to now. I really do not understand buckling under for fear of being accused of racism. This is how you overwhelm basically good people by taking advantage of their willingness to be shamed. That’s one of the rules for radicals published by Saul Alinsky. 

What next? The push back from those condoning all this declare it’s basically just kids being kids, folks getting their rage out and assure us it will end but what If the mob declares we shred the Constitution because they say it is racist, would that be allowed with no push back at all? 244 years of unprecedented success completely erased because some kinds of people can’t stand the idea of individual achievement? Apparently a very ungrateful immigrant, who managed to get herself elected to Congress, is basically calling for that. Imagine that - someone who fled a socialist country to come here for a better life is now demanding we dismantle the country that gave her asylum, a new identity and a huge annual income as a congress person. Again, I ask, what next?

If you believe you are a free thinker and have an open mind then I suggest you go to uncletom.com and watch the documentary Uncle Tom. If you love the sound of the current feel good rally call and you prefer to be one of the herd, then, God help those of us who still love the principles this country was founded on and the good life it provides for those willing to defend it. 

God Bless The USA

I don't cry easily, never did really, not to say I haven't had my tearful moments but in recent years even though I might get emotional or feel as though I could cry but then I just water up a bit and then it passes. I've thought maybe it's just age or that I am all cried out.

And then I watched this. 

For Him,

Meema