All posts tagged COVID-19

I could have added this as an update to an earlier post today, but it deserves its own entry. Well-written, thoughtful piece by Mary Harrington:

The tyranny of a Covid amnesty

A self-righteous cabal has delivered a public that is sicker and poorer

The penultimate paragraph:

We all knew every pandemic policy would come with trade-offs. The lawn-sign priesthood forbade any discussion of those trade-offs. I don’t blame the class that so piously dressed their own material interests as the common good, for wanting to dodge the baleful looks now coming their way. But no “amnesty” will be possible that doesn’t acknowledge the class politics, the corruption of scientific process, the self-dealing, and the self-righteousness that went to enforcing those grim years of lawn-sign tyranny.

P.S. That may be the first time I’ve ever used the word “penultimate.” Did I do it right? 🙂

UPDATE: Francis Turner has a point:

Try Saying Sorry First

So there’s this Atlantic article getting a lot of comment, mostly negative as far as I can tell, for suggesting we need an amnesty of Wuflu actions. Now to a degree I get where the writer is …

I’m willing to forgive people but has to be a quid pro quo that is an acknowledgement that there is something to forgive.

Worth a read. We should not forget…

Lockdowns: The Great Gaslighting ⋆ Brownstone Institute

More than two years since the lockdowns of 2020, the political mainstream is just beginning to realize the response to Covid was an unprecedented catastrophe

Charity toward fellow human beings died during the pandemic…

The Demonization of the Unvaccinated: A Look Back ⋆ Brownstone Institute

These vaccine passes and the illiberal fad of stigmatizing the unvaccinated were unscientific, unprecedented, ineffective, totalitarian, brutal, and dumb.

This is one of my tweets from last night:

Well, I figured if I am going to get blamed for it, I might as well do it. Just made a donation to the Freedom Convoy (albeit small). I encourage others to do so to.

Does this mean I approve of everything they are doing? No. I don’t even approve of everything I do (sadly).

— Alan Fahrner (@JegErAlan) February 12, 2022

I think the final sentence is important. I always support the right to protest, even if I disagree wholeheartedly with your take. I do not support lawbreaking (with some exceptions: e.g. when laws themselves are clearly immoral).

So, during the summer of 2020 protests, I did not approve of the intentional, prolonged blocking of Interstates. I’m in line with Jazz Shaw (writing about a protest in New Zealand):

While I do not approve of blocking traffic as part of a protest, particularly when there is a risk of emergency response vehicles being isolated, there’s no question that the entire Freedom Convoy concept is rapidly turning into a movement and spreading around the world.

And, Freedom Convys are a movement that I support.

So, am I a hypocrite?

I think not, but maybe. Thoughts:

1. I noted that I don’t approve everything they are doing. In the end, I have to decide if I support something overall. In this case, I do.
2. New rules were established by the MSM, progressives/liberals, and governments in the summer of 2020. Heck, in Seattle they literally took over a section of the city, and the city treated it as a valid form of protest. Consistency (and morality) means you cannot approve a method of protest only based on the views of the protesters. So, I may disapprove of the tactic, but they should get the same “kids gloves” treatment the 2020 protesters got.
3. The only prolific law-breaking the Freedom Convoy is doing is blocking traffic. That doesn’t mean it is okay, but…looking back at #2…you can’t say, “No way! It must stop!,” when you were explictly (or implicitly) approving protesters burning down buildings, looting businesses, beating and killing people, etc. during the protests riots of 2020.

Speaking of consistency, I have repeatedly said, since the beginning of the pandemic, that rights are for things are bad, not for when they are good. COVID-19 has been the excuse for totalitorian control, for why rights have to be “temporarily” given up, because it is such a huge emergency. It’s for our own good. To save grandma.

Although I do not discount the noble intentions of many involved, that’s not how rights work,  the path to hell is paved with good intentions, and…

Not to mention, it wasn’t all with good intentions.

Thanks you Canadian truckers!

As an overall summary statement of its present state, I agree with “it is a pandemic of bureaucracy”:

The Pandemic of the Bureaucracy: Finally liberals are waking up! One correction, @bariweiss : two years ago SOMEONE WAS pointing to scientific studies showing the utter uselessness of cloth masks: Rand Paul. And he was censored by YouTube and condemned by Fauci for it. https://t.co/Vjv3Wt57cw

— Kelley Paul (@KelleyAshbyPaul) January 22, 2022

As Clay Travis’ embedded tweet notes, “The most impressive thing about Bari Weiss on last night’s Bill Maher is the wild applause after she finishes here.” It is liberal audience. They realize the corona virus totalitarian emperors have no clothes and are more willing to acknowledge it.

The video above is worth a watch, and his thread from Yossi Gestetner is worth a read:

COVID-19 deaths since @JoeBiden’s first full day in office is 450,013. That’s a daily average of 1,229.

The 438,594 COVID deaths under Trump averaged 1,405 a day but that was pre-vaccines.

Mind-boggling that failed policies continue to be pushed and that Fauci isn’t yet fired.

— Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) January 23, 2022

In all this, I am reminded that politicians used to use “it’s for the children” as an excuse for whatever thing they wanted to do, even if the connection to children was as thin as a thread (or essentially non-existent).

I guess the kids no longer matter. We are damaging our children horrendously with our pandemic reaction…along with other untold devastation.

And “science” is an excuse. We aren’t following it.