Lives depend on determining the truth. Is the virus highly contagious and deadly? Or are the mass quarantines and shutdowns the result of a politically motivated hoax? If we do not take the medical risks seriously enough, innocent and vulnerable people will die needlessly. On the other hand, if we overestimate the medical risks, innocent and vulnerable people will lose their livelihoods. Lost livelihoods can ultimately amount to lost lives.
No one has time for the armchair and professional philosophers who try to convince us that there is no truth, only “truth” in scare quotes. You know the sort of philosophy I mean. Everything that appears to be true is only provisionally “true.” Truth claims are intrinsically power grabs. The person who makes truth claims is really out to control you and is not to be trusted.
Certain intellectuals have spent decades trying to convince us that a belief in “truth” places unnecessary and harmful restrictions on our happiness. There is “your truth” and “my truth” and possibly “our truth.” But truth without modifiers? Nope. No self-respecting modern person believes that.
Until now. Our experience with COVID-19 is showing us that the opposite is closer to the truth. (There is that “t-word” word, again.) Today, we all want to know the full truth about the virus and the best way to combat it. We don’t want to die, and we don’t want to see our friends and neighbors die.
But we also do not want to see our friends and neighbors go bankrupt in the process. Most of us know people who are living paycheck to paycheck. The economic impact of shutting down the economy, even temporarily, is no small matter. The standard “people before profits” chant doesn’t help the low-income family dependent on “nonessential” service jobs. We really need to get this right, as a society. The risks are huge with either type of mistake. (Read more.)
From Andrew Klavan:
The key to understanding who these modelers are came in a phrase uttered by Dr. Anthony Fauci after he announced the latest guess. “I know my modeling colleagues are not going to be happy with me,” Fauci said, “but models are only as good as the assumptions you put into them.”
Stop and ponder the psychology of that for a minute. Why wouldn’t his colleagues be happy with him for saying what is so obviously true? Well, it’s because these guys live off the authority their guesses derive from having the word “computer” attached to them and by saying “Look, we got it right,” after they’ve adjusted their models to reflect the final outcome.
According to an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Benny Peiser and Andrew Montford — two men who do battle against climate hysteria — “Several researchers have apparently asked to see Imperial’s calculations,” but Ferguson “has said that the computer code is 13 years old and thousands of lines of it ‘undocumented,’ making it hard for anyone to work with.” Shouldn’t Ferguson have thought of this before he predicted millions would die?
Then there’s the process by which these guesses are translated into psychic terrorism by journalists, the most incompetent and corrupt people in the country not currently in prison or government. Here’s Fauci talking about a new model with a worst case scenario of 200-thousand deaths: “Looking at what we’re seeing now, I would say between 100 and 200-thousand [deaths] but I don’t want to be held to that… I don’t think we really need to make a projection when it’s such a moving target that you could so easily be wrong.”
Here is Geoff Bennett on NBC Nightly News reporting the estimates: “The White House is now projecting that the country could see between 100,000 to 240,000 deaths resulting from this pandemic. That’s a best-case scenario. Underscoring the stark reality of this crisis.” Can you spot the difference?
I am not someone who has screamed and yelled about the loss of civil rights during quarantine. Even in a free country, municipalities and states have extraordinary powers in a health emergency. Nor am I going on Twitter declaring that the government has over-reacted because I know I don’t know. But I do think we should remember what is happening now. I think we should remember how easy it is for us to lose our freedom in an emergency. I think we should remember how easy it is for the government to spend our grandchildren’s money like water when everyone’s afraid. I think we should remember the virus of socialism that has infected the minds of our chattering classes, who are always so eager to manufacture a crisis like this in which they can, in the words of Democrat House Whip Jim Clyburn, “restructure things to fit our vision.” (Read more.)
From Cheryl Chumley at The Washington Times:
Now, Americans stay home in the day, at night, all the hours in between, sneaking out for a quick walk, a quick breath of fresh air, because they’re unemployed, furloughed, fired and near-broke. The government check with the state and federal funds isn’t due for another week or two, at the earliest. The movie theaters are dark. The roads are mostly barren. The churches have been closed. The jobless numbers are ticking up — and rapidly.
“Social distancing threatens social norms, mental health,” rings one headline. (Read more.)
More from The Washington Times, HERE. Share
1 comment:
Despite all the computer models, I do know that the H1N1 virus did not overwhelm hospitals and medical resources, and there were more ill and more deaths than this current virus. The media is not to be trusted in any way because they are owned by people who do not have the best intentions for our Country.
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