The ChiCom Virus: So, What Have We Learned?

Sorry for the long break from posting. Life, even in "lockdown" mode, got in the way, and, furthermore, I find myself more than fed up with what's happening; it gets harder and harder to write about it. And, of course, I had my snake "adventure," but that's a boring tale for another occasion.

Sorry, also, if I repeat myself. I certainly don't want to come off as a Joe Biden clone.

For those of you with a masochistic streak, you can go over this humble blog's posts for the last several weeks. I'll wait while you do that . . . With that all said, it seems some things bear repeating when it comes to the situation created by the ChiCom virus.

So, what have we learned over the past couple of months or so? In no particular order, I submit only a few things we might have learned, or better said, should have learned, or even relearned. You will have many others.

Don't Trust Communists 

I know, I know. That is a tough one, but, please try to keep in mind that Communists lie, and they lie big, real BIGLY. Their ideology and modus operandi rely on lies. Not only that, but you will find them more than willing, giddy, in fact, to see you and your family suffer and die in pursuit--"must break eggs to make an omelet, eh, Comrade"--of their goal to remake the world. Don't believe me? See, for example, the nonsense spewed by Cheapo-Commie AOC and her cohorts. They seem dizzy with glee over the prospect of remaking the nation on the backs of suffering workers. They don't want the economy to restart--but AOC, of course, won't give up her six figure salary. Look over, also, the media and see all those "liberal journalists" happy that the economy has gone into a stall; see how they portray folks who protest the stall, and want to go back to work. The Commies hate them for it, and openly cheer for the virus.

Now, you might ask, are all these people really Communists? Well, OK, no, I guess not, well not, at least, in the strict sense: they are too stupid to be real Communists. They don't know Marx, never having read him or the other "philosophers" of that horrid creed; they, furthermore, seem totally ignorant of the USSR, Venezuela, Cuba, and the other brilliant examples of Marxism in practice. The "liberal" media and punditry class come out of our decrepit institutions of "hire" learning--the correct term for places that charge an arm and a leg--which teach a downgraded, washed-out, ahistorical, lazy man's Marxism under various names, e.g., "feminism," "environmentalism," "social science," "race and gender studies," etc. At these institutions of hire learning, they learn a smug, ignorant cynicism, centered on a hatred for the West, which they seek to pass off as higher learning. We once called them "useful idiots." Time to bring back that very useful and accurate label.

The ChiComs, of course, are a lot smarter than our home-grown Commies. They prove more than willing to buy the rope from us with which to hang us--and we sold them a lot of rope over the past decades. In fact, we have gone even further: we subcontracted to them the rope-making business in the name of globalism, and to save a few bucks. These ChiComs, as we have seen, now wealthy thanks to the American Chamber of Commerce and their religious belief in "free trade," lied about the origin and contagiousness of the Wuhan virus. They allowed it to spread from Wuhan around the world. Then, with the Russians and Iranians chipping in, they have tried to flip the narrative: blame the US military, and offer "help" to countries affected by the virus. That help has consisted, in large part, of defective test kits and other faulty gear . . . and, well, you know the rest of the story. The Western pundits quickly parroted the ChiCom line out of ideological affinity, a shared hatred for America and the West, a desire to bring down Trump any way possible, old fashion bribery, and just sheer, smug stupidity.

The Experts are "Experts"  

I have written a lot about "experts," their models, and policy prescriptions, and how they have produced the dire predicament in which we find ourselves. I will try not to repeat it all, but, of course, will just a bit.

Our policies to "combat" the ChiCom virus have been driven and shaped by "experts" and their "models." That continues even as the "models" fail again and again in their predictions. Don't forget that "experts" can't even predict accurately the track of a hurricane from one day to the next, or the weather a couple of days out. That, however, doesn't stop them from telling us that we are all gonna die from Man-made Global Climate Cooling, Warming, Change, Whatever; that we will face more hurricanes, no, no, fewer hurricanes; stronger hurricanes, no, no weaker hurricanes; more snow, less snow, no snow; more floods, no, no, more drought . . . in other words, anything is possible and it's all because of human economic activity which must cease! The Climate, nee Weather, changes! That's never happened before!

Those same sort of models produced the wildly disparate predictions about the course and impact of the ChiCom virus. The models failed miserably, so much so that we now see the "experts" busily adjusting the data--i.e., rewriting the past--to fit the models as much as possible. They want the models to predict the past. We see, for example, NYC padding the death toll; we see any death involving a diagnosis of ChiCom virus attributed to the ChiCom virus. We also see NYC and other places, e,g, Spain, adding in "suspected" ChiCom virus deaths. We saw a similar stunt during the AIDS/HIV "epidemic" during which the "experts" and their models predicted tens-of-millions, nay, hundreds-of-millions of deaths striking regardless of race, sex, or sexual orientation. That, of course, did not happen. Not even close.

The "experts," in fact, more times than not, turn out to be political activists with a decidedly leftist bent. These "experts," and their media allies, have stampeded the government into the current lockdown.

As more and more data become available, it seems clear that enormous numbers of people have been exposed to the ChiCom virus and not gotten ill, much less died. The hospitals have not been overwhelmed. We see a fatality rate, never very high outside of a few metro areas, continuing to drop. It seems headed for flu-type levels of mortality.

To sum up, a real expert is somebody who can keep a farm running, or fix a complex piece of machinery, or build a house, or keep a fleet of trucks on the road, or pick off an enemy sniper at 600 meters. Those are true experts. They produce tangible results. Getting a university credential from "experts" does not make you an expert, it makes you an "expert."

The Economy and Future Are Being Sacrificed

We are destroying the greatest economy in the world in the name of "fighting" the ChiCom virus. That must stop, now.

We will find it easier to throw the OFF switch than to throw the ON switch. I found this out, in a much less dramatic setting, as Charge of the embassy in Indonesia. We had threats coming in almost daily from Islamist extremists. Should we close the Embassy in response? I have written before about the need to balance risk against gain. We had to balance the risk of staying open against achieving the mission we had been sent to do. On one occasion we got a very specific and credible threat: I closed the Embassy. That was the easy part. Getting it back open? A bureaucratic nightmare. Nobody in DC wanted to sign off on reopening. It took a bit, but we kept insisting, and finally got the OK to go back to work. The bureaucracy let me know, however, that it was my head if something untoward happened.

We are in the same situation now; well, let me clarify that, a situation much more serious than just a few overseas bureaucrats at risk. We have put the entire nation and its future at risk, and the prospects get evermore dire the longer we hold off reopening the economy.

Let people use common sense. Isn't that what freedom's about? Taking a chance?

Giving Totalitarian Crazies a Precedent 

Diploson number two (DS2), who's become quite a sage in a H.L. Mencken or Eric Hoffer sort of way, said that what worried him the most about the "lockdown" by government fiat due to a "health emergency" was the precedent it set. He noted that we could easily in the next few years get some enviro-wackos in control who would declare an "environmental emergency" and shut down the economy or those portions of which they did not approve. 

I think Young DS2 has grabbed onto something quite real. We already see dramatic overreach in places such as Michigan and Virginia where Governors issue all sorts of restrictive edicts of questionable legality. The Mayor of NYC has sought to establish Cuban-style neighborhood watches composed of snitches. We have seen this sort of overreach before at the Federal level with Woodrow Wilson and FDR. Now, however, we have established that the whole country can be shut down on the basis of questionable "expert" information. 

Time to end this and get legislation in place to make sure this sort of overreaction does not happen again. 

Off to walk my dogs.