Reordering Priorities

             It’s simply amazing how much of an impact a tiny bug can have on our lives, witness the reordering of priorities for everyone, from the leaders of the world to the common man on the street.

            At the top of the political food chain we have seen how far Chinese leaders have gone to lie about China’s responsibility for the coronavirus epidemic. We will never know how many lives have been lost in Wuhan, because China’s communist leaders will never permit the truth to be told. The expulsion of western reporters is only one of the measures China has implemented to avoid accountability for the spread of the virus.

            Here at home we have turned to our leaders to save us from this awful contagion. President Trump’s poll numbers have risen for his handling of the crisis. For all his inept and often incoherent responses to reporters at his daily briefings, people at least appreciate his stepping forward to explain his decisions and to cede the microphone to others who have the expertise that he lacks. In dire situations like this the people want leadership. Right or wrong, the president is providing it.

            The multi-trillion-dollar relief bill passed by Congress and signed by the president is an unprecedented effort to help businesses and individuals survive the crisis. The road to passage, however, revealed the true priorities of the Democratic Party as defined in its slogan, “Never allow a crisis to go to waste.”

            While Senate Republicans were trying to negotiate a bill that would be acceptable to both sides of the aisle, Speaker Pelosi was busy fashioning a bill of her own, a 1,440-page socialist wish list. Vote-buying pork for everyone, including odd payouts to casinos, travel agents, sunscreen manufacturers, harbor dredging, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. And let’s not forget goodies for unions, migrants and asylum seekers, the Green New Deal, and, of course, Planned Parenthood.

            Pelosi was not actually reordering Democratic priorities but responding to what Majority Whip James Clyburn saw as “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.” For Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez it wasn’t enough: we forgot to include illegal immigrants who should get the same as everybody else.

            Meanwhile, ordinary Americans have different priorities. They want to avoid getting the virus, but they like the one-in-a-thousand odds of getting it. Instead, they worry about the long-range future: recession, followed by another Great Depression, small businesses closing up forever, lost jobs, the next rent payment.

            But, want to know what Americans really fear?  Look at the people sitting in their cars in the Food Lion parking lot awaiting the next delivery of toilet paper. The panicked response to the coronavirus tells us everything we need to know about people’s priorities and their worst fears. In a country with an abundance that we take for granted, that fear is symbolized by something they likely have never seen in their lifetimes: empty shelves.

            I must confess I experienced a mini panic of my own this week. Our household supply of toilet paper down to two rolls, I began a search to restock. I failed everywhere I looked. Until a lady in line at Dollar General told me to go to the end of aisle 4 and look all the way in the back of the bottom shelf of the end cap. I did. And I found eight undiscovered rolls that I carried pressed to my chest as I hurried back to the check-out counter. I had learned something about reordered priorities.

The Real Heroes

            Peggy Noonan wrote last week about her experience with testing for the coronavirus. She said that we are surrounded by nobility. To illustrate the thought, she pointed to a Mike Luckovich cartoon of Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. “Only it wasn’t Marines—it was a doctor, a scientist, a nurse and a first responder anchoring Old Glory in this rocky soil.”

            Noonan’s experience mirrored mine. When I developed multiple symptoms—headache, fever, sore throat, head and chest congestion—I went to Carolina Family Practice to ask to be tested. When I told the receptionist why I was there, she quickly stepped away and summoned a physician’s assistant who came right away and questioned me from a distance. “Have you recently been in contact with someone who tested positive or someone who returned from travel abroad?”  When I said yes, it put in motion a process that I’m sure has since been repeated many times.

            The assistant (who shall remain nameless for reasons I will explain later) burst through the door to the inner office and gave me a mask to put on. She stood no more than three feet from me when she did that. She then ushered me inside.

            At this point I’m sure I had the full attention of the dozen or so patients in the reception area who were waiting their turn to be treated.

            Once inside, another assistant, wearing her own mask, wasted no time in taking me to a room to be tested, first with nose swabs for testing on site and later with throat swabs to be sent to a lab for further testing. I also had blood taken from a finger for additional tests. I was then interviewed at length by a doctor who made copious notes on my case, including a list of all the people I had been in contact with since my contact with a person who had recently returned from Europe. He later returned to inform me that the nose test proved negative and the blood sample showed no infections. All to my great relief. But I would still have to be sequestered until results of the lab test came in.

            Testing over, I was asked to keep my mask on and was ushered out the back door to avoid passing through the reception area.

            I have not named the receptionist, the assistants, and the doctor who treated me, and the many who would come in great numbers after me. They, and the many thousands like them across the country, are the real heroes of this epidemic, heroes on the front line who care for the health of others at the risk to their own. And, as we’ve seen in Italy, have a much higher infectious rate than the general public. They are the ones who deserve our praise and admiration. They are not looking for glory, only to care for us in our time of need. What they earn is our gratitude for their dedicated and selfless service. We are so fortunate to have them. Bless you all.

Humanity Responds to COVID-19

            Create a panic and watch people respond. Wars bring out the best and the worst in us. This one, the coronavirus pandemic, is no different in that respect. Only the actors and the scenes are.

            COVID-19 may have been born in a Wuhan lab or perhaps a food market. We may never know, or even want to know, especially if it was the result of an experiment in germ warfare gone wrong. What we do know is that any chance it had of being contained was destroyed by a massive cover-up by a Chinese government concerned more about its mage than the lives of its own people. The story of Communist China’s mendacity is now an open book, and the world will not soon forgive the merchants of evil in Beijing for the death and destruction they have wrought.

            The pandemic is peeling away the pretensions of players on the world stage. The weakness of the European Union cannot be denied any longer. When poor Italy whose government-controlled health system proved incapable of caring for the victims of the virus, its appeal to the European brotherhood for even the most basic supplies fell on deaf ears. The EU response was the sound of borders slamming shut, effectively destroying Italy’s faith in the shared benefits of continental solidarity.

            Here at home, President Trump is getting a 55% approval rating on his handling of the crisis, even as his critics in the media continue to find fault with his leadership. Trump, of course, gives them plenty of ammunition in his overbearing press briefings, which would best be handled by Mike Pence and his team of scientific advisors.

            On the political front, clueless Joe Biden has continued to accuse the president of hysterical xenophobia in taking quick action to prevent travelers from China from entering our country. But Democratic leaders in Congress are cooperating with the administration in crafting legislative solutions. Even a persistent Trump hater like Representative Ilhan Omar has praised Trump for his response to the pandemic. Give Trump credit for bringing industry leaders together on testing, finding drugs to treat the disease, and accelerating the development of vaccines.

            Outside the Beltway, panic drives shoppers to clean out store shelves of toilet paper, hand sanitizers, and other essentials; seizing the opportunity, hoarders take advantage of shortages to make a quick buck; and millennials, especially the kids on spring break, don’t seem to understand the need for “social distancing.” But those are the exceptions; the general public seems to understand that we’re all in this together and that we must all endure sometimes major inconveniences to help stop the spread of the virus.

            On a personal note, while I was quarantined awaiting the results of testing for the virus, my wife and I received offers from many friends to do little things for us, like running errands or food shopping. We even had one deliver a meal to us. We may be dismayed for good reason at the selfishness of some shoppers and the cupidity of hoarders, but it’s the generosity and care of neighbors and friends in times of need that reveal the true character of Americans and give us hope that we will get through this. Together.  

           

Cultural Immorality

            We’ve heard just about every topic debated by Democratic presidential candidates and we will no doubt continue to hear and read about policy proposals on  climate change, the economy, gun control, health care, and foreign policy, not to mention candidates’ tax returns and their physical as well as mental fitness to hold office. What has not been debated to any significant extent is the cause of this country’s deteriorating cultural and moral health.

            Take gun control. Politicians all seem to think that the solution to preventing mass shootings in malls and schools is more gun control. The enemy is the NRA, and the real target for reform is the Second Amendment. If we can only get the guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, say the critics. But what they are really saying is that we will not solve the problem until the Second Amendment is repealed and all guns are seized from all gun owners. “Hell, yes,” said Beto O’Rourke.

             What we never hear from the candidates is a condemnation of business enterprises that profit from the culture of violence, of people who corrupt our youth with movies, TV shows, and video games that celebrate death and destruction, the more gruesome the better. This is nothing more than our culture’s moral rot in action.

            Underlying all of this is how our society is debasing the value of life itself. The most divisive issue of all, the one that splits our country in half, is the issue of abortion. Tthe current runs strong and deep on both sides.

            We see it in the marches and rallies. We see it in arguments in favor or against funding Planned Parenthood. And we see it in the protests against public positions taken by our politicians.

            When Governor Northam of Virginia supported not only late-term abortions but also the denial of medical care to babies who survived botched abortions, the protests were so loud they almost cost him his job.

            When Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer threatened Supreme Court justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh if they struck down abortion rights (“You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions”), he was forced to immediately recant.

            The winds are beginning to change, I think. On February 25th two bills in the U.S. Senate failed to get the 60 votes necessary to override a filibuster. One bill would have banned abortions after 20 weeks, with exceptions for the life of the mother and victims of rape and incest. The bill failed in a 53-44 vote, even with the support of Democratic senators Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

            The second bill would have penalized doctors who fail to “exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion.” This bill failed by a vote of 56-41, with all Republicans voting in favor, and Senators Casey, Manchin, and Doug Jones of Alabama joining them.

            I can understand the defeat of the first bill; Americans are fairly evenly divided on the issue of a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy, even one as advanced as 20 weeks. In fact, some even support that right up until the very moment of birth. I doubt very much, however, that a majority of Americans recognize the right of a mother, with the assistance of her doctor, to terminate the life of a baby who survived an attempted abortion. Opponents call this what it is—Infanticide. 

            By latest count there have been over 61 million abortions performed in this country since Roe v. Wade in 1973, almost a million and a half a year. That average has dropped to below a million a year, an encouraging sign.

            Over 90% of abortions are performed for the “convenience” of the mother. Supporters of a woman’s reproductive rights are OK with that. But there seems to be a growing disgust with late-term abortions and especially with partial birth abortions. But I think most pro-choice Americans hang their heads when it comes to infanticide. Are they beginning to re-examine their views on the sanctity of life? I hope so.

Politics of the Coronavirus

            Hatred for Donald Trump has never been more evident than in the politicizing of the coronavirus epidemic by Democratic politicians and their sycophants in the mainstream media. No matter what the president does, he is going to be attacked by them. He was too late in responding to the crisis, he appointed the wrong people to handle it, and he is responsible for the inevitable spread of the virus and its fatal consequences. Well, it’s beginning to look like the Democrats and their mouthpieces have been wrong on all counts.

            Of all the countries in the world, the United States has the most air traffic inbound from other countries, including China. Logic says that the U.S. should have more cases of the virus than other countries that are seeing a high rate of infections. But it hasn’t. Why not? Because President Trump made an early decision to prevent inbound flights from Asia; it’s likely that thousands of infected passengers were prevented from landing on our shores and spreading the disease.

            When the president appointed Vice-President Pence to head the team of experts to prevent an epidemic, he was criticized for picking a leader who was not a scientist. Nonsense. Pence is heading a team of the most knowledgeable scientists on the planet. They were prepared, they were ready to act, and they are doing a superb job of controlling the spread of the virus, while at the same time being realistic about the possibility of an epidemic.

            Moreover, the president has gotten leaders of the pharmaceutical industry to put their collective knowledge to work to come up with anti-viral vaccine to immunize our population faster than would otherwise be possible.

            Meanwhile, Democrats and the media are desperately looking for anything that would help them in the fall elections. In their Trump-hating minds they envision a vast contagion working in their favor; so much the better for them if an epidemic destroys all the gains Trump has made on the economy.

            The most outrageous lie perpetrated by the media is in accusing President Trump of calling the epidemic a hoax. He never did. The real hoax, he said, was the way the media is using the coronavirus for political gain.

            President Trump has done everything right in protecting our country from the coronavirus. So far it looks like he is succeeding. The numbers don’t lie. The numbers of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths caused by the coronavirus thus far are minuscule compared to what we expect in flu season. The Center for Disease Control says we will likely see 32 million people to come down with the flu this year, leading to 310,000 hospitalizations and 18,000 deaths. As of this writing, only 11 people have died in the U.S. from the coronavirus.

            The coronavirus may yet become a pandemic. It is highly contagious and can be deadly, especially for the elderly. But if the American people continue to take the proper precautions against its spread, we may look back a year from now when anti-viral vaccinations are widely available and thank President Trump for his swift and effective action to discharge his primary duty of protecting us. I may not like Donald Trump for a variety of reasons, but on this he has earned my praise and my gratitude.