REPUBLIC REBORN

Jimmy Dore covers the Biden’s latest live-streamed face plant:

The entertainment value of the upcoming Trump/Biden debates will be legendary.

From Sharyl Attkinson’s excellent blog.

And look at the age of those who are dying. By far the majority of deaths are occurring among people in their 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and above. Life expectancy in the United States is 78.

The stay-at-home order remains in place until April 10th.

Chaos reigns supreme. When will anyone know what’s going on?

California, New York, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Louisiana, New Jersey, West Virginia, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Michigan. So far. 

I would argue that fear is the most destructive human emotion. The power of fear is staggering. Someone in the vice grip of fear loses all reasoning ability, reverting to an animal state of emotional reaction. It has the power to compel someone to make the most irrational of decisions, decisions that can have devastating long-term consequences. Our leaders are making fear-based decisions, the media is pumping out a continuous stream of fear-inducing headlines, and the rest of us are attempting to navigate this new reality with as much cool-headedness as we can muster. For the most part, everyone I’ve encountered has not been ensnared in the fear that the media and government so desperately wish us to be caught up in. Everyone is fairly calm, although I do see plenty of face masks. They are trying their best to take the advice of their government, practice “social distancing”, and stay at home. Their businesses shuttered or operations curtailed, they are attempting to be good citizens, and are placing their trust in what their government is telling them. But it can only go on for so long. Fear is on the horizon, real fear, but not of a virus. It’s the fear of economic insecurity, the fear that they won’t receive a paycheck, or rather one much smaller than they are used to.  Fear has led to a domino-collapse of economic activity. Economic activity is lives and livelihoods. A ceasing of economic activity will instill a level of fear that no virus ever could.

We are told that this is a war against a virus, and the language now being used mirrors the language used to prosecute the “War on Terror”. But the real war is against our fear. This fear that we now feel is giving our own government free reign to impose martial law. To find our way out of this rapidly deteriorating situation, we must refuse to give in to the fear that we are being force-fed. If unemployment hits 30% in this country, no one will give a damn about a seasonal respiratory infection. They will be too focused on finding work, and feeding their family. What we are witnessing is the power of fear, and it’s ability to rapidly lay the foundation for authoritarianism and destruction.

If our species experiences a true apocalypse, it’s cause won’t be some disease or other natural disaster. It will be self-inflicted. We are our own worst enemies.

From WDSU

What is the rationale behind these destructive shelter-in-place orders? COVID-19 will still be here when everyone emerges from their homes. Life will eventually have to go on.

Life goes on under threat of the flu, a bigger killer than COVID-19, and it should continue to go on now.

A voice of reason.

Of course mayors are still able to cosplay dictator to their heart’s content, and destroy local business in the process.

The headlines being written for the COVID-19 spread are unbelievably reckless. But other writers do have cooler heads, and Spiked’s Brendan O’Neil calls out the elites for their “luxury of apocalypticism”, as well as the government response as more performative art or apocalypse theater than an actual measured response. COVID-19 is a health challenge, not the end of the world. But an economic collapse triggered by reckless government policy could very well feel like an apocalypse for many, and for a very long time. It isn’t worth it, especially now that we are discovering that coronavirus is about as dangerous as seasonal flu.