In the name of combating a corona cold virus, power-wielding elitists have upended not just our own society, but the operations of the world.
And yet, 21 months later, not only do millions and millions of American citizens remain scandalously ignorant of the facts regarding all things COVID; they continue to facilitate the ever-morphing narrative that its crafters have been laboriously purveying since March of 2020.
But there are indeed certain facts that, particularly at this stage in the game, everyone has an obligation, a moral obligation, to know. We will identify them in the next article. Now, though, it’s imperative that a comment or two be made concerning the ignorance of the countless numbers of people who have bought in full every syllable about COVID that springs from the lips of the (government-media) authorized Experts.
Their pretensions of moral superiority vis-à-vis the heterodox only render more glaring their own weaknesses of character. While the guardians of COVID orthodoxy dehumanize their fellow human beings as “anti-maskers” or, what’s more in vogue these days, “anti-vaxxers,” those who are essentially being likened to murderers or attempted murderers should remind themselves that their accusers have zero moral capital to level charges of any sort against anyone. The reason for this is straightforward:
If everyone thought as the “anti-maskers” and “anti-vaxxers” thought, not a single person of the tens of millions of Americans (to say nothing about the millions of others in other countries) who lost their jobs would have become unemployed.
The one million or so American business owners who were forced to permanently shutter their doors would still be able to enjoy the fruits of the passion, the blood, the sweat, and the tears that they spent years investing in making their dreams a reality.
The 40%-50% of black small business-owners who were coerced into shutting down their operations forever would still be enjoying their livelihoods.
There wouldn’t have been a single instance of depression, anxiety, domestic abuse, substance abuse, or suicide over “the pandemic.”
Not. One.
Not a single school would’ve closed.
Children would not have been deprived of a normal childhood, of the milestone events that mark the latter, and they would not have had fear of their peers (and everyone else) instilled in them at every turn by the sights of masks and plastic dividers.
Not a single house of worship would’ve closed, and people would’ve continued to have their existential needs met by way of being in the company—the real, as opposed to the virtual, company—of the fellow members of their faith community.
The infirm and elderly would not have been denied visits from loved ones, visits that are integral to their well-being. They would not have died broken-hearted, lonely.
Legions of people who died prematurely from other causes because the procedures they needed had either been postponed in anticipation of a surge of COVID patients or because they themselves feared going to the hospital and learning that they had COVID may have lived.
Families, friendships, romantic relationships, and other types of communities that ruptured would have (all things being equal) remained intact.
There would be fewer political divisions within our society, a society that is already rife with such divisions.
And the two billion or so human beings from around the globe who fell into poverty last year because of the disruption in supply chains due to the devastation visited upon economies courtesy of “quarantines” would not have become impoverished.
Quarantines kill. They kill the body, yes, but even if the flesh survives, the psyche is ruined.
To be clear: It is not “the pandemic” that brought immeasurable economic, physical, spiritual, and psychological suffering and death to billions around the world. It is the response of human beings to their fear of a pandemic that is the culprit.
To borrow terms that figure centrally in discussions over what theologians and philosophers of religion refer to as “the Problem of Evil,” we can say that the destruction of the COVID era is not an illustration of “natural evil” but, rather, of “moral evil.” It is, as they used to say, a “man-made” disaster.
For the orthodox and their leaders to exempt themselves of all responsibility for the suffering that ensued because of their choices by blaming it on some impersonal “pandemic” further underscores their character deficiencies. This is bad faith. It is cowardice.
While those who the COVID orthodox contemptuously refer to as “anti-maskers” and “anti-vaxxers” would’ve spared the world this disaster, the converse is equally true: The orthodox own the astronomical number of casualties claimed by it.
Of course, it’s correct that the culpability of the masses is not remotely as great as that of the power-brokers and influencers who exploited their ignorance and their susceptibility to fear. The fear-mongers in the government, the media, the medical establishment, and the pharmaceutical industry are guilty for crimes against humanity, and their guilt is incalculable. The guilt of those who they manipulated and who have convinced themselves of the truth of the lies propagated by their leaders is not categorical. Still, given both the literacy and the information available to Americans in the 21st century, there are no exculpatory considerations that can relieve the orthodox of all responsibility for the readiness with which they continue to unquestioningly treat as dogma every new decree—however blatantly it contradicts other decrees—that issues forth from the guardians of the COVID narrative.
The bottom line is that the COVID orthodox don’t have the moral high-ground. They squandered it a long time ago, and continue to prove that they have no claim to it. It is those who they demonized and continue to demonize, those who held fast, who refused to indulge the Spirit of Fear, who affirmed their own moral agency and did what was in their power to prevent or stop the suffering to which others were being subjected that have the moral capital.
Both positions, both responses to COVID, are moral responses. The decision to wear a mask or not, to “socially distance” or not, to favor vaccine and mask mandates or not—these are moral decisions. As such, they reveal the character of the person making them.
All of this must be borne in mind the next time a politician, a career bureaucrat, a media figure, an entertainer, or a relative tries to shame you for challenging, say, the word of Dr. Fauci.
It is they who must live with the shame for the harm for which they are responsible.
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