Blog

Tyrants flourish when fear and ignorance are present. They wither in the face of courage. “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” This is a quote taken from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s inauguration speech during the Great Depression in 1933. True leaders understand the importance of exhibiting calm during a crisis. History is replete with leaders displaying such courage. It is courageous leaders and the resultant courage of the masses that keep tyranny in check. When there exists a dearth of courageous leaders, and the masses cower in fear, the door is left ajar for tyrants. Too many people today are weak and need the government to make decisions for them. They want to be safe, even if it means giving up their freedom. Even if it means living their lives in a way they worked for decades to avoid. Shame on them! It was Benjamin Franklin who said. “Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty or Safety”.

If you are reading this it is almost certain that you are a citizen of the United States of America. As such we have rights that are different, and in many ways better, than citizens of other countries. We are a comparatively free people. Those rights, and that freedom, will continue only as long as we stand up for them. The COVID-19 pandemic is threatening the freedom of the American people. In March we were told that we must stay home and lock down for 2 weeks while we “flatten the curve”. The curve was flattened. We were told hospitals, ICUs, and clinics, would be overrun with COVID patients. They weren’t. We were told that people were going to die because of a lack of ventilators. No patient that needed a ventilator ever went without one. Chicken Little, in the form of our government, kept proclaiming the sky is falling. It wasn’t/isn’t! So here we are, 9 months later, with ever more restrictive lock down orders from our ruling elite. We let them put the fear of God in us.

Fear can’t gain a foothold in society unless it is abetted by ignorance. As children many of us were afraid of monsters under the bed. Once we grew old enough to understand that monsters aren’t real those fears fell away. When fear grips our nation, as it has with COVID-19, there is always a purveyor of fear. With COVID, the purveyors of fear are the leaders of our governmental entities, led by the democratic party. This is not an ideological or political statement. It is a fact. Take a look at where the most strict lock down restrictions exist. Just this week Governors in California, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, have issued threatening edicts instructing people to cancel family Thanksgiving gatherings. The Governors of all of these states are democrats. These are people who think the American people are incapable of making intelligent decisions on their own. They understand that frightened people are easier to control. Fear mongering doesn’t just exist at the state level. During the presidential campaign Joe Biden continually quoted the grim COVID death totals and how the dead would all be alive had he been President. He tried to scare the hell out of us by predicting a huge number of additional deaths would occur if he wasn’t elected. He went on to talk about the increase of COVID cases all over the country. An informed citizenry would have recognized this is a predictable consequence of increased testing. Accurate reporting would have included the good news with the bad. That the number of cases were going up was true. It was also true that the number of deaths, and hospitalizations, were going down. If your goal is to keep people masked and cowering in the fetal position in their homes you can’t tell them this good news. Thanks to an unprecedented effort by the Trump administration, and the great work done by the drug and medical professions, over 95% of the people in the U.S. who get the virus recover from it! Even more impressive, over 99% of those under the age of 55 recover from the virus! Sadly those responsible for keeping the citizenry informed, the media, didn’t do so. They know that scary news sells better than accurate news that is not scary. It is also clear they had a dog in the fight in Biden. Joe Biden, and democrat Governors, and Mayors, continue to frighten Americans with Draconian lock downs as if facing the Bubonic Plague. Family Thanksgiving dinners are being cancelled in some states, and threatened in others. Many shrinking violets are being frightened into avoiding their special day to gather with their loved ones. It has been a while since being with our loved ones has been more important!

To be successful, purveyors of fear need help. They need a mechanism for keeping people uninformed. The mechanism of choice to keep people confused was, ironically, the media. One of the reasons the media received special constitutional protection was to act as a watchdog against government corruption and tyranny. It has failed miserably in that responsibility for a very long time. The media acted more like a lapdog when it came to reporting the news about COVID. Democratic leaders continue to lock down their citizens as if the virus presented a virtual death sentence! And the press, acting like the PR arm of the democratic party continues to support the lock downs. As mentioned above the press selectively reported COVID statistics. Given the tragic numbers stated by Biden, and dutifully reported by the media, many Americans recoiled in fear. Make us safe they whined. Get the monster out from under my bed they whimpered. Had the press reported the complete set of stats people would have been less frightened and more rational. People typically make better decisions when they are not afraid. The press should be ashamed about the part it played in keeping Americans in the dark. Americans should be ashamed about their unwillingness to get the facts and think for themselves. Millions of people all over America are losing their lives, and livelihoods because of the lock downs. Politicians who force the lock downs, and media people who support them, are all still being paid. Their health insurance and pensions are being funded. Their lack of empathy is appalling. One can only wonder if their Draconian rules would be different if both of them were not being paid while any shut down was in force. Look, I don’t want to die any more than the next person. I have taken every rational precaution to avoid getting the virus. Having said that I don’t want the government telling me where I can go, and when. Freedom and liberty are in the DNA of most Americans. It is time we start pushing back against these autocratic tyrannical wannabes. My last quote for this post comes from Euripides. He was a Greek tragic dramatist who lived from 484 to 406 BC. He said: “I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.” Hooray for Euripides!