Poverty and Family Structure

            Tons of studies have shown that poverty is the greatest cause of developmental problems in children. Children who grow up poor are far more likely to do poorly in school, to run away from home, and to commit suicide. As adults they are far more likely to abuse drugs, commit crimes, and go to prison.

            Other studies have shown that the United States has the world’s lowest rate of children living with both parents. That rate is 69%, compared to China where the rate is 97% and in neighboring Canada where it is 85%. Racial differences are just as startling: only 39% of African-American children live with both parents, compared to 74% for white households. It is not racist to point this out; this unfortunate reality is a serious problem for the black community.

            The link between poverty and family structure is undeniable. Roughly half of all families headed by single mothers are likely to be poor, while 10% of families headed by both parents are not.

            One would think that Black Lives Matter, a social movement advocating racial justice would care about that. Strangely, its mission statement on this issue goes in the opposite direction.

            At its launch in 2012, the founders of Black Lives Matter made no secret of their Marxist ideology and their national goal of removing our system of democracy and capitalism and replacing it with a totalitarian communist state. But since the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson and especially after the brutal murder of George Floyd and the violent protests that it engendered, BLM’s focus has been on building a network of local chapters of like-minded organizations opposing police violence against black people.

            To broaden its appeal, Black Lives Matter is stressing inclusivity by displaying empathy for all blacks who suffer from discrimination based on sex or gender identity, age, religion, immigration status, or what it calls “the tight grip of heteronormative thinking,” otherwise known as the domination of our culture by straight white males.

            But when it comes to problems associated with single-parent homes, it doesn’t place the blame on the deterioration of family values. Instead it seeks to “dismantle patriarchal practice,” and identifies the problem as caused by “Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirements.” In other words, it minimizes the importance of having a father in the home. Instead, it prefers “extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children…” Where have we heard that before?

            On another subject, it is sad that some of us were not able to celebrate the 4^th of July as we have in the past. Few fireworks or parades, no family barbecue. But one person was not unhappy with that. Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback who made his mark kneeling during or national anthem, called the celebrations commemorating the nation’s founding “a celebration of white supremacy.” I wonder what football fans in New England would have thought if the Patriots had picked up Kaepernick to replace Tom Brady. Better still, would Colin have insisted that the Patriots change the team name?

           

This Is War

            Sometimes a leader of Black Lives Matter reveals the truth about the organization’s intentions. In a recent TV interview, Hawk Newsome, President of Greater New York Black Lives Matter, said quite candidly, “If this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down the system and replace it.”

          It doesn’t matter whether Newsome was speaking figuratively or literally: the desired result is the same. Antifa, the violent military arm of Black Lives Matter, has already demonstrated its power; it has torched stores, offices, police precincts, and even churches without opposition. The message is clear: violence and destruction will go on until BLM’s goal is met.

          What goal is that? It’s not ending racism. Racism is only the pretext, the excuse for going to war with America. Racism is the Trojan horse. Black Lives Matter is a serious ideological movement that opposes our democratic system of government, the system that has made us the freest people in the world, and it rejects the capitalism that has made us the most prosperous.

          Black Lives Matter despises our values and our culture. It wants nothing less than the destruction of western civilization. The toppling of statues by BLM-inspired mobs is a clear signal that our very history must be erased. And if you think that Black Lives Matter will be satisfied when all the statues it finds offensive have been torn down, read what BLM activist Shawn King wrote:

          “All the murals and stained-glass windows of white Jesus and his European mother and their white friends should also come down. They are a gross form of white supremacy created as tools of oppression. Racist propaganda. They should all come down.”

          There you have BLM’s enemies list in a nutshell: European (Western) civilization and white people, with Christianity thrown in for good measure.

          Check out Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, the co-founders of Black Lives Matter. They boast of being radical Marxists whose avowed goal is to completely remove democracy and capitalism from this country and replace it with a totalitarian, communist state. And they will do it unless somebody stops them.

          Now, America doesn’t want to go to war with Black Lives Matter. After all, BLM has some serious gripes about our slave-owning past and our racist cops. Right? So let’s try appeasement first. Let’s not defend that Minneapolis police precinct under attack by the mob. Let’s rename Washington’s 16^th Street NW, call it Black Lives Matter Plaza, and paint the new name in bold, yellow letters on the pavement so even the president can see it. Let’s not interfere with the creation of an armed autonomous zone in the heart of Seattle. Let’s apologize to Colin Kaepernick and promise to kneel with him when he returns to the NFL. Let’s remove the likeness of Aunt Jemima from our box of pancake mix.

          The fools in Congress think they will deliver peace by putting handcuffs on the police. Corporations and Hollywood elites think that donating millions to BLM will buy justice. The mainstream media thinks it speaks for all Americans when it shows empathy for Black Lives Matter. We have become a nation of cringing, guilt-ridden apologists.

          We don’t want war, but we don’t realize that the enemy is already inside our gates, spilling from the Trojan horse.

The Enemy at the Gate

          Black Lives Matter is not about ending police brutality.  “Defund the Police” is not about re-training the police but eliminating law enforcement altogether. The death of George Floyd was merely a pretext for launching BLM’s campaign against our democracy. Protests are a means to humiliate everyone into paying homage to BLM, to give it legitimacy, to enlist ignorant youth to join the ranks, to force political leaders to their knees, and to extort financial support from corporations and foundations.

            We should have no doubt that Black Lives Matter is a serious ideological movement that seeks to overthrow our values and our culture. The toppling of statues by the BLM-inspired mob is a clear signal that our very history will be erased. And if you think that Black Lives Matter will be happy when all statues it finds offensive have been torn down, read what BLM activist Shawn King wrote:

            “All murals and stained-glass windows of white Jesus and his European mother and their white friends should also come down. They are a gross form of white supremacy created as tools of oppression. Racist propaganda. They should all come down.”

            Black Lives Matter intends nothing less than the destruction of western civilization. The arson, looting, and property destruction by its Antifa brothers is a message that violence and anarchy will go on until BLM’s goal is met.

            What is that goal? We need go no further than listening to Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, the co-founders of Black Lives Matter. They boast of being radical Marxists whose avowed goal is completely removing democracy and capitalism from this country. They want a totalitarian communist state, and they will achieve that goal unless someone stops them.

            But first, let’s try appeasement. Let’s rename Washington’s 16^th Street NW, call it Black Lives Matter Plaza, and paint the new name in bold, yellow letters on the pavement. Let’s evacuate and not defend that Minneapolis police precinct under attack by the mob. Let’s not object to the creation of an armed autonomous zone in the heart of Seattle. Let’s apologize to Colin Kaepernick and kneel with him when he returns to the NFL Let’s remove the likeness of Aunt Jemima from our box of pancake mix.

            We have become a nation of cringing, guilt-ridden apologists. The enemy, I’m afraid, is well inside our gates.

         

Madness n the Streets

            The proximate cause of the protests raging around the country was the gruesome video of George Floyd gasping for breath under the knee of Derek Chauvin.  But the cauldron of anarchy had been brewing for a long time.

            Black Lives Matter, the radical anti-police organization, was launched in 2012, but the cowardly, black-clad Antifa thugs responsible for the arson and destruction of property trace their ideological Marxist origins all the way back to the Soviet Union in 1921, with re-incarnations in 1932 Germany and Britain’s Anti-Fascist Action in 1985. Antifa’s long-term objective has always been to abolish capitalism in favor of a communist world order, and its methods have always been characterized by extreme violence. By goading authorities into action, they become ideal partners in Black Lives Matter’s crusade to abolish the police.

            The protesters in the streets, however, are not all black, and only a few resort to torching police cars and throwing bricks through windows. They are mostly in their 20s and 30s, many of them college graduates whose minds were shaped by the leftist educators who dominate university culture.

            Academia, then, carries much of the blame for what is tearing our country apart. So many of the youths now marching in our streets were never trained in the intellectual pursuit of the truth or about civic virtue. Instead, they were indoctrinated in the radical view of America as a capitalist and imperialist nation of racists, sexists, and homophobes with a history of oppressing people of color. It’s no wonder these protesters have bought the lies of Black Lives Matter and cannot see the destructive agenda of Antifa.

            A photograph I saw of a protester in Brooklyn says it all. The young, black woman is holding up a sign that says, “No Justice, No Peace, Abolish the Police.” Her open jacket reveals a T-shirt with the hammer and sickle communist symbol across the front. She is surrounded by young men and women—all white.

            Exactly how do protesters like these think that abolishing the police will result in justice and peace? Are they so ignorant of history that they would end the freedom and prosperity we enjoy and replace it with communism? Have they never been taught about the tens of millions killed by the likes of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot?

            Sadly, these champions of “justice” are the same ones cheering as statues are being torn down in San Francisco, Boston, and Richmond. And not just of Confederate generals, but of historic American figures like Junipero Sierra and Francis Scott Key. And what did Miguel Cervantes ever bequeath to us that his statue deserved to be defaced? Christopher Columbus? Washington and Jefferson? Even Abraham Lincoln? What kind of justice demands that all of them must be found guilty of racist oppression and erased from our collective memories? What madness.

The Lies of Black Lives Matter

            The image of Derek Chauvin pressing his knee to George Floyd’s neck was horrific. But when the brutal act resulted in Floyd’s death, it became a gift from heaven for Black Lives Matter.

            The radical protest movement that adopted the slogan of Black Lives Matter was launched in 2012 after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, although there was no evidence to show that Zimmerman acted in anything other than self-defense.

            The shooting of Michael Brown by a policeman in Missouri in 2014 led to cries of “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.” The facts proved this to be a lie, but Black Lives Matter had found its true motivator: the killing of blacks by racist police. BLM organized protests in cities and university campuses around the country, even though BLM’s charge of systemic racism was not supported by data on police killings of blacks.

            In Staten Island later that year Eric Garner died after a police choke hold. The officer was accused of murder but was not prosecuted, and a new slogan was born: “I Can’t Breathe.” It would resonate once again in Minneapolis.       In the meantime, protests grew louder and more violent, In December 2014, two officers were assassinated in Brooklyn in a revenge killing for Eric Garner’s death.

            BLM led more protests when Freddie Gray died in police custody in 2016. It didn’t matter that the three officers involved were found not guilty; the movement had a new life. And protests grew more violent yet. Five officers were assassinated in Dallas, three more in Baton Rouge.

            Covid-19 took center stage in the news in 2020 until May 25, when the world saw an 8-minute video of George Floyd losing his life under the brutal knee of Derek Chauvin. And since then we have been witnesses to the worst violence and destruction in our country’s history in response.

            Lost among the impassioned eulogies for George Floyd was the hushed truth about what led to his death. One immense painting of Floyd shows him wearing the wings of an angel. But he was no angel. George Floyd had a history of criminal trespassing and theft with a firearm. He was jailed multiple times and sentenced to five years in prison for aggravated robbery. On the day he died, he was arrested for passing a counterfeit bill. Handcuffed and high on fentanyl and meth, he resisted arrest for three minutes before being forced to the ground by officers. None of this was on the 8-minute video that went viral.

            “No Justice, No Peace,” cried the mob. Derek Chauvin was arrested and charged with murder and will likely spend most of the rest of his life in prison. But that was not enough for Black Lives Matter. It now called for defunding the police.

            To ensure that its objectives were met, BLM intimidated politicians, academics, corporations, and Hollywood elites to bow abjectly in obeisance to BLM’s “truth.” Nancy Pelosi and Congressional Democrats donned African garb and knelt in submission. Even some cops prostrated themselves in admission of guilt. The mayor of Washington renamed a plaza for Black Lives Matter. Armed radicals created an autonomous zone in the heart of Seattle.

            The ultimate BLM lie is that America, from its very founding, is guilty of systemic racism. Statues of Confederate heroes must be pulled down. Military bases named after Confederate generals must be renamed. Even monuments to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson must not be spared. History must be re-written, and reparations paid.

            Are there bad cops and racists among us? Of course, there are. But that fact does not justify the radical movement to anarchy. And it doesn’t excuse the silence of leaders who should be challenging BLM’s lies. What is happening to my country?

The Enemy Is Us

          China (the Chinese Communist Party, not the Chinese people) is our mortal enemy. It has vowed to become the world’s number one superpower, and to achieve this it must first destroy America. And it is well on its way to doing just that.

          For at least the last decade, but especially since the accession of Chairman XI Jinping, it has put together a multi-faceted strategy to defeat us on every front. It has used its cheap labor to shut our factories; it has flooded our shores with cheap products; it has created a virtual monopoly on pharmaceuticals; it has stolen our intellectual property; it has sent its diplomats to spy on us, and sent its 4students to our universities to learn from the best of our academies; it has taken the lead in advanced technological developments.

          On the international front the Chinese have brazenly built and armed islands in the South China Sea to control shipping routes in that area; it has funded North Korea’s nuclear weapons program; it has allied itself with America’s opponents, like Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela; it has launched a massive Belt & Road initiative to advance its interests in—and eventually control—third world countries.

          Then it seized on a brand-new strategy that just fell into its lap by accident. When Wuhan became infected with Covid-19, it immediately closed the city to prevent the spread of the disease to the rest of China, but allowed infected people to travel abroad to infect the rest of the world, all the while colluding with the WHO to prevent others from learning the truth and taking steps to control the virus. China intentionally infected the rest of the world, and its leaders are now rubbing their hands in glee at seeing how well their strategy has succeeded in America.

          China could not possibly have imagined a better way to destroy our economy and impoverish our citizens; it could not possibly have found better allies than our governors and mayors to do their dirty work by shutting down our schools and businesses, by locking our citizens indoors, by denying them their constitutional rights to assemble, to worship, and to work.

          President Trump called this the worst attack on our shores since Pearl Harbor. And he was right.        

          Now Chairman Xi and his cohorts are laughing even harder as they see the United States doing their dirty work for them. They are no doubt cheering for the rioters who are burning, looting, and destroying our cities. And they couldn’t be happier at seeing our impotent leaders actually justify the protests, as they are powerless to stop the violence.

          Again, President Trump, for all his hesitation, is the only one to call for all our resources, even our military, to engage in the fight to stop the thugs and the criminals—and yes, the terrorists—from destroying our country.

          It’s about time all of us realize that The United States has found a new mortal enemy. And that enemy is us.

         

           

Sic Semper Tyrannis

          Sic semper tyrannis (thus always to tyrants) is said to have been uttered by Brutus as he stabbed Julius Caesar. The phrase was also used by John Wilkes Booth after shooting Abraham Lincoln.

            We have many tyrants these days operating out of state houses and mayoral mansions. I’m not suggesting we assassinate them, but I am saying it is time for them to recognize that the tyranny they exercise is doing irreparable harm to this country, while oppressing the very citizens they were elected to serve.

            When Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti extended his stay-at-home order indefinitely, he said it was to save lives. He added he was guided by science and nothing else. This sanctimonious idiot certainly was not guided by common sense.

            When mayor Bill De Blasio told the citizens of New York City that he would send NYPD officers to haul swimmers out of the water, he said it was to protect them. How stupid is that? After pointing out that his city will remain shut down, he claimed that “things are going well.”

            Really, Mr. Mayor? Try telling that to the man who invested his life savings in a taxicab that now sits in his driveway. Try telling that to the owner of the little restaurant on the West Side who no longer sees the clients who enjoyed his French cuisine before going to the theater and then stayed overnight in a hotel down the street. Idled cabs, shuttered restaurants, darkened theaters, empty hotel rooms—is this what you mean by things going well, Mr. Mayor? Are you actually pleased that your orders are destroying your city? Are you smiling and waving goodbye at all the thousands of people who are leaving New York, never to return?

            There are many other government tyrants issuing silly and arbitrary orders. Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer says you can take your boat out on the water, but you can’t take passengers with you. New Jersey’s Phil Murphy says you can play tennis, but not doubles. California Governor Gavin Newsom agrees with Garcetti that you can go to the beach to surf and swim, but you can’t picnic or sunbathe on dry sand. The list of idiotic orders is very long. What they all have in common is the utter lack of common sense. Drunk with power, these officials are impervious to ridicule.

            Reality is stark: businesses big and small are declaring bankruptcy, with Hertz, J.C. Penney, and JCrew only the latest in a long line of familiar names; shops are closing their doors permanently, with millions of jobs gone forever. We now have over 20 million people on unemployment, with poor chances of ever being rehired.

            Our leaders are willfully blind to the misery they are causing in their zeal to save lives. They cannot see the price people will pay in poverty, malnutrition, depression, and despair. We are already seeing increases in suicides, opioid abuse, domestic violence, crime. Why can’t the tyrants see this?

            C.S. Lewis saw the problem very clearly: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive….those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end if they do so with approval of their own conscience.”

            Many, including me, are predicting that history will look upon the Great Lockdown as the worst mistake this country has ever made.

Tyranny

          Semper tyrannis (thus always to tyrants) is said to have been uttered by Brutus as he stabbed Julius Caesar. The phrase was also used by John Wilkes Booth after shooting Abraham Lincoln.

            We have many tyrants these days operating out of state houses and mayoral mansions. I’m not suggesting we assassinate them, but I am saying it’s time for them to recognize that the tyranny they exercise is doing irreparable harm to this country, while oppressing the very citizens they were elected to serve.

            When Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti extended his stay-at-home order indefinitely, he said it was to save lives. He added he was guided by science and nothing else. This sanctimonious idiot certainly was not guided by common sense.

            When mayor Bill De Blasio told the citizens of New York City that he would send NYPD officers to haul swimmers out of the water, he said it was to protect them. How stupid is that? After pointing out that his city will remain shut down, he claimed that “things are going well.” This tyrant is actually pleased that his orders are destroying his city. How many taxicabs will return to his streets after this is over? How many restaurants will reopen their doors? How many New Yorkers will move away and never look back?

            There are many other government tyrants issuing silly and arbitrary orders. Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer (only one person per boat), New Jersey’s Phil Murphy (singles but not doubles in tennis), California’s Gavin Newsome (no sunbathing on LA beaches). The list is very long. What they all have in common is the utter lack of common sense. Drunk with power and impervious to ridicule; they are willfully blind to the misery they are causing in their zeal to save lives.

            Reality is stark: businesses big and small declaring bankruptcy, with Hertz, J.C. Penney, and JCrew only the latest in a long line of familiar names; shops closing their doors forever, with millions of jobs gone forever. Over 20 million on unemployment, with little chance of ever being rehired.

            The people will pay the price in misery, poverty, malnutrition, despair. We are already seeing increases in suicides, opioid abuse, domestic violence, crime. Do the tyrants not see this? Are they totally blind to the consequences of their actions?                   

            C.S. Lewis saw the problem very clearly: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive….those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end if they do so with approval of their own conscience.”

            Many, including me, are predicting that history will look upon the Great Lockdown as the greatest mistake this country has ever made.

Individual Responsibility

  

            How many of our leaders have expressed the hope that we can soon return to normal. I guess normal means kids back in school, workers off unemployment, spectators back in the stands, and our economy roaring again. But that’s not going to happen until and unless we have a major change of attitude among these same leaders.

            It’s interesting to note how the authorities of various countries around the world reacted to the pandemic, once they realized it was a highly infectious killer. In China, the Chinese Communist Party surrounded Wuhan with troops, creating a prison of 11 million people. In Italy and Spain, the leaders were caught flat-footed and didn’t have time to mount a defense. Others like in South Korea and Sweden came up with effective strategies to keep their economies buzzing while mitigating the spread of the disease. Sadly, some ignored the threat entirely and are now paying a horrible price.

            What did we do here in the U.S.? President Trump was wise to stop people from coming in from China, even before the first confirmed infection in this country. Anthony Fauci said not to worry, Covid-19 would be no worse than the common flu. But both Trump and Fauci didn’t realize that the virus was invading our shores from Europe. When tens of thousands of infected victims checked into New York hospitals and threatened to overwhelm the city’s health system, our leaders panicked. They shut the country down.

            The president and the governors who locked down their states claimed the authority to override the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They were well intentioned: they wanted to save lives. But in exercising the power of a dictatorship in their respective fiefdoms, they forgot one very important fact: their power, as spelled out in the Constitution, is limited by the rights granted to the people.  They forgot that any power they have was granted to them by the people whose rights they now trampled.

            Americans understand that the government has extraordinary authority to curtail dangerous activities during emergencies. Most people willingly cooperate with authorities, because they recognize that their orders are meant to save lives. The key here is that they would do it willingly: they don’t have to be ordered to do it.

            However, when they sense that their constitutionally protected rights are being denied, they react, they speak up, they protest, and disobey orders. They open salons and bars, they fill their churches, they take to their beaches. They claim their right to work, to worship, to assemble. They give the proverbial finger to authorities who threaten to arrest, prosecute, and jail them.

            I say bravo to them. I say bravo to the Wisconsin Supreme Court that has lifted all restrictions on businesses and gatherings imposed by the state’s governor. It’s about time a court has curbed the government’s power to act unilaterally to deny the people’s most cherished rights. Freedom. It’s what makes this country the greatest nation in the world.

            Will this country ever get back to normal? Perhaps. But only when individuals have the freedom once again to make their own decisions on how they want to live their lives.  Will there be risks? Sure. But we’ve learned an awful lot about how to act responsibly to mitigate that risk.

            We’ll know we’re on the right track when we are allowed to decide for ourselves whether or not to go to a concert or sit in the stands to see a football game. Sooner than later, I hope.

             

           

A Massive Mistake?

          I’ve never known a time when I’ve felt so overwhelmed by the news. There are so many “just in” bombshell stories, it’s difficult to focus on one without feeling you’ve missed something important somewhere else.

          For conspiracy fanatics, there’s the Michael Flynn case’s dismissal by Attorney General William Barr who saw Flynn’s set-up not only as a gross abuse of power by the FBI, but also as clear evidence that the Deep State was attempting a coup against President Trump.

          On the related Russia collusion hoax, there’s the call for Chairman Schiff to resign his chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee after documents he refused to release for over a year now show that he was lying all along about having solid, tangible evidence of President Trump’s complicity.

          And for those who enjoy seeing Joe Biden squirm, there’s the glee at yet another witness coming forward to corroborate Tara Read’s story of sexual assault by the Democratic presidential candidate.

          Yet, all these stories must take a back seat to the on-going saga of the war against Covid-19. This war is being directed by a civilian chief executive who never went to a war college, while he surrounds himself with advisers who have been in previous conflicts, but never one of this magnitude.

          The war on the ground is being fought by 50 generals on vastly different terrain. Like the Union generals in the Civil War, a few are brilliant, some are mediocre, and too many are downright incompetent, most of whom are arrogant fools infatuated with the power of their office; they issue edicts that not only violate the supreme law of the land, they traduce critics even to the point of imprisonment.

          Meanwhile, those who are ultimately responsible for managing this conflict have been making decisions based on an inchoate science handicapped by faulty field intelligence. They are torn between two seemingly irreconcilable strategies: one that favors the health of our citizens versus one that wants to save the economy from ruin.

          The very natural human tendency is to preserve as many lives as possible even if we have to sacrifice the wellbeing of the economy while hoping that the damage is not permanent. But that may in the long run prove to be a massive mistake, a mistake committed not only by the United States, but by countries around the world that take their lead from us.

          Covid-19 is very contagious, but so is panic and hysteria. The United States has a better chance of surviving the effects of a total lockdown than a country that lacks the wealth and resources to prevent a plunge into extreme poverty and starvation.

          We need to reassess the effects of the lockdown, because the ultimate outcome of this strategy, if prolonged beyond reason, could be catastrophic. Or, to put it in grim terms, more people will die from the economic impact of the virus than from the virus itself.

         

         

A Higher Authority

            When inaugurated, every state governor pledged to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. Almost every one of them has failed to some degree to do so in confronting the coronavirus. Some outrageously so.

            The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, states clearly and unequivocally what rights we enjoy as a free people. The first and most important amendment couldn’t be clearer. It protects the free exercise of religion, the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right peaceably to assemble, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. Every one of these rights has been violated during the pandemic.

            Here are just a few examples. People have been barred from going to church or even listening to ceremonies from parked cars; opinions critical of government lockdown orders have been purged from YouTube and Facebook; people have been banned from beaches and parks; protests at state capitals have incurred retaliatory measures; petitions have been summarily rejected.

            Then there’s the Fourth Amendment, which protects the people against unreasonable searches and seizures. How is New York Mayor Bill de Blazio upholding his oath of office when he tells citizens to spy on each other and report violations of his orders? How is it constitutionally permissible for authorities in Elizabeth City, New Jersey, to use a drone to monitor people self-distancing in public places and scorn them if they don’t?

            What’s next? Kites with cameras? Telescopes with facial recognition and thermal imaging? Drones that recognize if people are coughing? And here we thought that only the Chinese spied on their own people.

            When Tucker Carlson of Fox News asked New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy under what authority he had the right to overrule the Constitution, the governor sheepishly replied, “The answer to that question is above my pay grade.” That dodge, if we think about it, has some truth to it. Governors who issue edicts and mandates that violate people’s rights are asserting that they do not answer to a higher authority, even when there indeed is one—the Constitution of the United States. And when they do, they are breaking the law.

            People all over the country are fed up with prolonged lockdowns, enforced closures against stores and restaurants, and all sorts of prohibitions against small businesses. We have already seen rebellious shops forcibly closed, licenses revoked, owners cited and fined. What’s next?  Imprisonment? Internment camps?

            This country was born in revolt against an authoritarian monarchy. Do we need a revolution against our own authoritarian government to restore our freedoms? Our Founders stood shoulder to shoulder in their fight against tyranny. Should we summon their spirits to return to fight again?

Close to Home

            Over 65,000 deaths in the U.S. from the coronavirus and mounting.  Nameless and faceless people until one of them is a relative or a friend. For me, that barrier of anonymity was crossed last week.

            Claire Quintal died from the virus on April 29, only days after turning 90. She is mourned all over New England by people of French-Canadian ancestry like me who admired her for her selfless dedication to a cause, the Franco-American heritage.

            I can relate to Claire. She was born and raised only a few miles down the road from my hometown, and her childhood education was similar to mine. She was a brilliant scholar with many advanced degrees. The ten years she spent in Paris from 1958 to 1968 earning her doctorate and teaching bracketed my years of study in Europe. Who knows? I may even have passed her on the street on one of my frequent visits to Paris.

            Faced with a choice between marriage and a career, she chose the latter. And for over 40 years her dedication to her mission never wavered, highlighted by the founding of the French Institute in Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts.

            I met Claire Quintal when she invited me to speak at a colloquim at the Institute in 1994 and got to appreciate first-hand her dynamic leadership in the preservation of the culture, values, and history of the million Canadian immigrants who settled in New England towns between roughly 1840 and 1940.

            I could go on about Claire Quintal, but my point here is that the virus becomes personal when it takes the life of someone you know. Worse, I’m sure, when it’s someone in your family. In fact, there are no nameless and faceless victims, because they all had families, friends, or at the very least, people who knew them. While the numbers may seem overwhelming, each death is personal to someone.

           

Saving the Economy

            The most contentious debate surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic comes down to a simple proposition: our health vs. the economy. Which is more important? Well, they are both important. So, the question becomes how to preserve one without destroying the other.

             Reaction to the invasion of the silent killer was horror at the rapid spread of the virus and its lethality. New York City quickly became the epicenter of the battle and led to Governor Cuomo’s decision to lock down the whole state. Other hot spots like New Orleans and Michigan soon followed suit. It wasn’t long before every state had issued a similar directive. Stopping the spread of the disease had become a singular, overriding objective. Concern for the economy was secondary.

            It was apparent right from the start that the country had been ill-prepared to fight such an epidemic. President Trump wisely closed our borders on January 31, but that didn’t prevent infections from spreading rapidly. Shortages of essential materials had governors crying for federal assistance to provide test kits, masks, gloves, gowns, and ventilators. Even the availability of hospital beds became critical when the number of patients threatened to exceed existing capacity.

            Yet, the national response was admirable. By mid-April, there were no longer any shortages of critical materials, and even testing was catching up. At the same time, the rates of infection, hospitalizations, and fatalities had come down dramatically.

            By then, unfortunately, the economy was in shambles. Shops and businesses were closed, many permanently; unemployment numbers were headed for double digits; the trillions of dollars thrown at the problem by the federal government provided some help, but no solutions. Recession loomed. Even Depression. It was time to reopen the economy, to put people back to work, to relax the rules on self-confinement.

            The debate heated up. How do we restore the economy without causing a resurgence in infections and deaths? How fast and how far do we go? On the advice of his health experts, President Trump advanced a three-stage plan to get the country moving again by May1.

            Some opponents, particularly Democrats and the mainstream media, cynically see a prolonged economic crisis as a political opportunity to inflict damage on the president; the worse the economy looks in November, the worse Trump’s re-election prospects will be.

            Others see mitigation (stay-at-home rules, banning crowds, limiting the re-opening of non-essential businesses) as our best chance to eradicate the disease. But there is a fatal flaw in that argument. Covid-19 is not going away. Mitigation only postpones its return; when personal distancing is no longer mandated, the disease will spread once gain.

            There are only two ways of slowing the spread of Covid-19: vaccination and herd immunity (as more people get infected, the fewer people there are to pass it on to). While we wait for an effective vaccine to be made available to the masses, we may see herd immunity develop naturally. But for that to happen, an awful lot of people will need to be infected. As Sweden has done, we would let the virus play out, run its course.

            This solution may not be as horrible as it sounds. First of all, we may be much farther advanced on this road than we think. We calculate the mortality rate of Covid-19 as the number of deaths (the nominator) compared to the number of infections (the denominator). Tests now being conducted randomly are beginning to show that we have under-counted the denominator in a significant way. The tests seem to indicate that there are far more infected people than we realized. These infected people are asymptomatic: they have (or had) the disease, but few or no symptoms, and, because of that, have never been tested and therefore never added to the denominator.

            That’s important, because these people have (or will have) developed anti-bodies that give them immunity to the disease and make it impossible to transmit it to others. That being the case, a resurgence of the virus will not be as severe as feared; there will be no need to resume the lockdown.

            We may, of course, see a spike in hospitalization rates in some places. But we have learned an awful lot these past few months on both treating the sick and mitigating the spread of the disease. We now know the people most susceptible to severe illness and how to minimize their exposure; testing will help identify those who need to be quarantined until they have recovered and developed anti-bodies; we will have to apply common sense rules to manage crowds at concerts and sporting events; and people will have to continue healthy practices in their daily lives.

            There is no reason we cannot once again have both healthy lives and a healthy economy.

           

           

           

           

Theft on a Grand Scale

            By the time the Wuhan virus peters out, we will have lost many thousands of lives and we will be struggling to regain our economic balance after seeing so many businesses dissolve into bankruptcy.

            We may suffer yet another great loss in November. If Democrats have their way, we will lose something else of immeasurable value: fair elections—to theft on a grand scale.

            Consider the familiar Democratic mantra: Republicans steal elections by disenfranchising minorities. For example, Democrats continue to cite the 2018 gubernatorial election in Georgia lost by Democrat Stacey Abrams, the first female African-American candidate for governor. A suit claiming black voting rights had been trampled went nowhere; in fact, African-Americans had voted in greater numbers and a higher percentage of eligible voters than ever. The tired mantra, at least in Georgia, was proven to be false.

            Democrats clearly need a new strategy. Not to worry. Many Democrats believe the Covid-19 pandemic, which discourages human contact, has given them one.

            The plan is very simple: replace voting in person with write-in ballots. The idea is now being actively promoted by no less a trusted luminary as Michelle Obama. She could just as easily have advocated opening the door wide open to voter fraud.

            With the elimination of the requirement to show up at a polling place in person to vote, absentee ballots will be available to everybody, including people who had no intention of voting. Even dead people. All it takes is a small army of unscrupulous political operatives to falsify ballots and mail them in.

            It’s not that difficult. Democrats have already proven they can steal an election. In 2018, ballot harvesting in California’s Orange County wiped out Republican candidates in what was traditionally a conservative Republican stronghold. Nothing stops them from committing this same sort of voter fraud on a national scale.

            The best way to prevent voter fraud is with voter ID at the voting booth. A valid ID is required for any number of activities, from cashing checks, to buying booze, to travelling on a plane. The claim that requiring a legitimate ID to vote suppresses minority votes is a complete lie, as well as an insult to minority voters. On the contrary, it is the single best way to guarantee the integrity of the election process. But with party standards set by the likes of Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi, integrity has not been a Democratic strong point of late.

            Using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to push write-in ballots, Democratic governors will follow the lead of Governor Northam who recently signed a bill to repeal voter ID laws in Virginia and to extend early voting to 45 days to give cheats more time to falsify and harvest ballots.

            It’s all about achieving power by any means. If Democrats think they can’t win a fair election, they will find a way to win a crooked one.

Enemies Among Us

            I didn’t go to church on Easter Sunday because my church doors were closed. But services were recorded and available on-line. Such is the effect Covid-19 has on religious observance that infection is to be feared more than perdition.

            Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear took his role as infection fighter very seriously. He ordered churches to close their doors to prevent worshipers from coming inside to attend religious services. To enforce his order banning such gatherings, he said he would record the license plate number of anybody violating his directive and have the Health Department visit that individual’s home to impose a 14-day quarantine.

            A church in Louisville found a solution by having people worship in their cars. Call it a drive-in church service. That wasn’t good enough for Mayor Greg Fisher who prohibited church drive-ins. He did not, however, prohibit other drive-ins or drive-throughs like to liquor stores.

            Fortunately, Judge Justin Walker would have none of it. He issued a restraining order against the mayor’s prohibition, calling it stunning, beyond all reason, and unconstitutional. Bravo, Judge.

            On Good Friday a man was forcibly dragged off a bus in Philadelphia by two uniformed policemen. His crime? He wasn’t wearing a protective mask. A video of the incident has now been seen by over 2 million people.

            It is no longer enough to ask people to stay at home to help control the spread of the virus. Many governors are now ordering people to do so. Oregon Governor Kate Brown has gone one better by making any violation of her stay-at-home order a Class C misdemeanor punishable by 30 days in jail or a $1,250 fine.  And NO visitors!

            There are reports of people being arrested for surfing in the ocean or jogging at the beach. In California, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office encourages people to call and report violations of shelter-in-place orders.

            Has our country gone nuts? Only a totalitarian government controlled by a police state does this kind of stuff.

            Last week a wonderful lady had her husband drop off face masks for me and my wife. These were just two of over 250 she has sewed for her neighbors. On Easter morning another neighbor left a bouquet of freshly cut hydrangea blooms on our front porch. Our neighbors weren’t arrested. Not yet anyway.

           

A Spring Diversion

            We may not have major team sports to entertain us these days. But sometimes Mother Nature provides a bit of diversion to remind us that television is not the only source of visual pleasure.

            On a bright, sunny morning in last week,l I had what you might call a David Attenborough moment.  As I was walking up the driveway to my house, a flurry of activity on the top of a carissa holly caught my eye. Two adult brown thrashers were attacking a green snake the size of my thumb.  I’m guessing the snake had discovered a nest inside the holly with freshly laid eggs in it, but the birds were not about to let the slithering menace dine on their embryonic offspring.

            The birds performed a perfect tag team assault on the little reptile whose valiant defense was futile.  They were relentless, first one and then the other attacking ferociously from either side.  The battle lasted less than a minute, ending with the snake withdrawing to the interior of the shrub for protection.  The thrashers continued to flit around, looking for their foe, all the while chattering scouting reports to each other.

            Unlike David Attenborough, I didn’t have a camera to record the episode. But I took as much pleasure in the moment as I would have cheering for the home team Red Sox against those invading Yankees.

           

Indefinite Confinement

            In his Perquimans Weekly column last week, my friend Billy Rowell had a number of suggestions to relieve the monotony of sequestration. I had already done most of them: clean out closets, pull out old photo albums, weed the flower beds, get in touch with old friends. But there was one suggestion that made me nod in agreement: read that novel you’ve been putting off reading.

            That novel, for me, was “A Gentleman from Moscow” by Amor Towles. It turned out to be the most relevant work I could ever have read. It’s about Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, a Russian aristocrat in his 30s who returns to Moscow in 1922, only to be arrested for writing a seditious poem and condemned to house arrest in the city’s Metropol Hotel for the rest of his life. There he remains for the next 32 years, a span beautifully chronicled by the author.

            My goodness! Are we condemned to be under house quarantine for the rest of our lives like the Count? Admittedly, The KGB was a fearsome enforcer of Soviet conformity. But aren’t Americans being threatened these days to stay at home…or else? If not for the rest of our lives, how long?

            Here’s where I stand. I believe that President Trump’s instincts were correct in wanting to end mandatory confinement by Easter for those parts of the country where COVID-19 has not taken hold. He was talked out of it by his advisers who peddled panic at the possibility of victims falling by the hundreds of thousands unless Americans cowered in their homes in fear of that invisible enemy. There would be briefings every day, but no mention of the tens of thousands who are killed every year by the common flu, the opioid epidemic, cancer, heart disease, suicides, and automobile accidents. The only possible focus would be on the coronavirus.

            Meanwhile, the country is headed for economic disaster. People living in places like Perquimans County where there is virtually zero chance of infection cannot go to the bank or the library, eat inside a restaurant, go to church on Sunday, or get a haircut.

People who normally look forward to going to work every day now must sit and wait for the promised unemployment check.

            So, what’s the solution? The geniuses in Washington are now cooking up another multi-trillion-dollar piece of legislation that will in part provide work for the unemployed. On infrastructure projects. What nonsense. How many waitresses or hair stylists will applaud the opportunity to fill potholes or scrape rust from the nearest bridge?

            It’s time to let people who do not live in the so-called “hot spots” go back to work. They should do all those things health specialists recommend to minimize exposure to the virus. Sure. But shops and offices should open their shuttered doors to let people go back to work. That’s the best thing they can do for this country and for themselves.

            And another thing. With rare exceptions COVID-19 only kills older people. Kids who catch it recover in no time. So why not let them go back to school instead of barricading them at home where they waste their time playing video games and annoying their parents who have to stay home to watch them.

            Whoever said that the cure is worse than the disease will be proven right if we let this shutdown go on much longer.