Analysis/Opinion
For the most part, I am sure those who have us cowering in our homes are very smart people, but they’re not economists and they’re not elected leaders. They are doctors. Doctors always tell you to stop doing stuff, even if it’s not realistic.
Foot hurts from running? Don’t run. They’re not therapists who teach you techniques about how to keep running while managing the pain. Allergies? Stay in doors during pollen season. Oh, and take this high-priced prescription antiallergen just to be safe.
They are applying the same “don’t do that” strategy to the Wuhan coronavirus. Don’t work. Don’t shop. Don't go outside. Don’t worship.
The truly inconvenient fact of the matter is, if we keep shutting everything down for an indefinite amount of time, we are going to be in the greatest depression in world history. We can’t just put businesses in the freezer like thawed meat and take them out when it’s over.
It is time to tell the American people the truth: If our businesses are locked up and we employees are cooped up in our houses for much longer, most of those business and jobs aren’t coming back.
When 9/11 happened, we all adopted late hero Todd Beamer's “Let’s roll” battle cry. Now it’s “Let’s roll up in a ball and hide under the bed until the virus passes over us,” like God’s final plague on Egypt — sans blood on the doorposts and lentils.
One of the least appealing aspects of the American character is the pseudo-expertise that compels a certain percentage of our countrymen — doctors, governors and others (some might add women, but I live with one quite happily, so I won’t) — to nag, pester, and generally annoy and make the rest of us by trying us conform to their sense of correctness, political or otherwise.
These people — these obnoxious Karens, for lack of a better and more polite term — are delighted by the Chinese Bat Biter Flu and the opportunity it presents for them to try to impose their arbitrary will upon the rest of us.
The doctors helping oversee the response to the Wuhan coronavirus are pushing governments to issue “immunity cards” which would ID those with virus antibodies, presumably making them “safe” for travel inside of and outside the United States.(Photo Illustration: ACV Reports)
These mewling Mussolinis need to be slapped back, verbally if not physically — though, admittedly, physically slapping them back is tempting. As long as we are under this lockdown, they will not stop. The Leftist elite live for this, the chance to dictate to and control us, and the problem is some of them have positions of power.
This is yet another reason — as if the failure of the “We’re all gonna die!” scenario continually touted by the Faucis and Birxes of the world is not reason enough – we need to be focusing on coming out of this Wuhan funk.
If would be a pity if this Wuhan coronavirus not only killed thousands of our most vulnerable citizens but also our will to resist petty tyrants who presume to scold us for such crimes as worshiping our God, seeing our families, and buying tomato plants.
As if they don’t invade our personal privacy enough already, while claiming that doesn’t happen, Apple and Google are cooperating on the development of a virus tracking app — which they of course claim will be impersonal and inviolate. Dr. Anthony Fauci is seriously talking about issuing “immunity cards” to those found to be have Wuhan antibodies [read: immunity] so they can freely travel the country and the world.
If that doesn’t remind you of every movie, good or bad, in which the Gestapo-like soldier says, “Papers please,” it should. For good reason, too, because such apps and ID cards would be the first step in permanently restricting our ability to move about without question from authorities.
This is not to say that the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic is fake or unserious. We cannot ignore it and pretend that it is just another flu. But there is more going on now than a respiratory ailment.
There’s an economic ailment, most of us being painfully aware. There is also a freedom ailment, where the Karens in everyday life and in the corridors of power are taking advantage of this crisis to let their fascist flag fly.
Somehow, some government officials are treating the virus as unserious. That is evidenced by the packed New York subways just Monday morning, while Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) is browbeating people over going to church services and grocery shopping. (Photo: New York Post)
When you have some petty official — including those who have a lofty title, like, for instance, Governor — commanding Christians not to gather together in worship, that’s a line that they don’t get to cross. My church is worshiping via livestream, because that’s what we decided. Government officials don’t get to decide.
But it was our decision. No official gets to ban religious services. That issue was laid to rest by the First Amendment. While the Karens of the world may think it’s a really, really good idea to tell us what to do, they don’t get to. As federal judge Justin Walker put it in a powerful opinion that every American of any faith, or no faith at all, should read in its glorious entirety:
On Holy Thursday, an American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter. That sentence is one that this Court never expected to see outside the pages of a dystopian novel, or perhaps the pages of The Onion. But two days ago, citing the need for social distancing during the current pandemic, Louisville’s Mayor Greg Fischer ordered Christians not to attend Sunday services, even if they remained in their cars to worship – and even though it’s Easter. The Mayor’s decision is stunning. And it is, “beyond all reason,” unconstitutional.
His Honor Judge Walker was appointed by Donald Trump and his confirmation was shepherded by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), where Louisville happens to be. Don’t channel the Fredocons by pretending that judges do not matter because you know there would be plenty of Clinton and Obama judges eager to rubberstamp the banning of Christian or Orthodox Jewish services by liberal political Karens seeking to own the normals.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) shepherded Justin Walker’s nomination to the U.S. District Court in Kentucky. Walker issued the strongly worded decision that blocked Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, a Democrat, from banning drive-in church services on Easter Sunday. (Photo: UPI)
In Michigan, Governor Karen O'Karenheimer (or Whitmer, if you prefer) decided that buying non-essential stuff should be outlawed, and guess who decided what’s non-essential? Well, dope appears nonessential, but dope smokin’ morons make up a lot of the Democrat base, so off course hopheads get a pass. But gardening supplies and seeds? Nah.
Why? “Because,” that’s why. You might think it was mind-bendingly stupid if you did not understand her real motivation – it’s the giddy joy of bossing you around. To paraphrase a great line from Heat, which everyone should do as often as possible, the fascism is the juice.
The Karenists love this. Love it. And that’s why they are fighting tooth and nail to extend this lockdown in perpetuity. Oh, they have excuses and rationalizations to make it seem like this is for our own good as opposed for their jollies. “Safety.” “Lives at stake.” You know them all. And in theory, those are real considerations.
They cannot be the only considerations. Not for the Karens – they can want to save lives even as they gleefully get off on their own power – and not for us either.
We need to balance all the considerations in deciding when this ends. Safety is an important thing, but not the only thing. If the standard is no life can ever be put at risk, say good-bye to cars, to steak, to swimming pools, to any kind of freedom to make choices.
For the Karens, that’s a feature, not a bug.
We need to come out of this and reopen soon, not just to save our economy — though we totally do need to save our economy — but to save ourselves from coming to believe that freedom is a luxury we can’t afford.
Freedom is not a luxury; it is a necessity. Maybe a Karen’s life is worth living on its knees, I don’t know. I was raised on a farm in the heart of America, served in the U.S. Army for 22 years, now a psychologist with a bent for politics. I’ve gotten used to being free.
I’m thinking that if I can’t be free, then why bother being at all? Please don’t call the suicide hotline on my behalf, but my years of services in multiple careers and venues tells me that, if anything is worth dying for, it is the right to breathe free.
Gov. Karen Whitmer (D-MI) is the prototypical fascist whose thirst for power has resulted in restrictive, unconstitutional “executive orders” that must be challenged, even if they expire soon. (Photo: AP/Al Goldis)
This is not to say that we should pretend there’s no pandemic. In fact, few people do or want to — that’s not what freedom requires. It is to say that persuasion must be the default, not intimidation. Like most of you, I mostly stayed at home and distanced myself, not because some Karen was going to jump my Schiff if I didn’t but because I decided that these were reasonable precautions that I should take for myself and my fellow citizens.
That’s how we all started off, and that’s how we should still be doing it, but the Karens gotta Karen, and we’re not going to take it.
You look at half-wit politicians dreamcasting that we’re going to sit in our houses like sheep for the next year awaiting their permission to live again, and you see video of cops shamefully tackling unmasked people on buses and you know that we’ve turned a corner.
These goofs have overstepped. Rampant Karenism is going to provoke a backlash, one that might include people disregarding legit medical precautions because YouTubes of Keystone Kops chasing lone joggers around empty beaches have nuked the authorities’ credibility.
The clock is ticking on our patience. This needs to end.
The President should set a federal timeline, with federal objectives for reopening America. Now, he’s limited in what he can order — the vast majority of the responsibility and the authority is the purview of governors and local officials who need to be doing what’s right for their own uniquely situated communities.
President Trump can certainly spotlight who is moving toward normalcy and who is trying to wring the last drop of authoritarianism out of the Eating Weird Stuff Flu.
In November, we’ll remember who is a Karen, and who is not.
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