Dakota Beacon

Perhaps we are reaching a tipping point with the coronavirus pandemic.  Not so much with the course of the virus itself, but rather with the response to it.  I don’t say “our” response because everyone’s response is becoming more disparate as days, weeks, months go by.  I’m talking about a social, political, philosophical tipping point - perhaps even a turning point.

It seemed reasonable at the outset, what the “experts” were calling for and perhaps it was - a temporary quarantine, a shutdown of activities considered “non-essential” until our medical resources - hospitals, personnel, equipment, perhaps treatments - were martialed to deal with the effects of the sickness, an effort to buy time to be able to cope with patients.  Then it became a crisis.

People were told not to go to work.  Actually, they didn’t have to be told - their places of employment were “temporarily” closed.  So, what about a paycheck to support the monthly bills?  The groceries? The utilities?  The car note and the mortgage or the rent?  Well, Uncle Sam would chip in.  We got (and are grateful for) stimulus checks and unemployment supplements.  Without them we would be in real trouble, in fact.  But as businesses began to threaten closure, more help was needed.  Selective help, as it turned out, was going to be the answer and (just as I predicted) it was not handled fairly, it was complicated, it was almost entirely a “gray area”, which we might as well call a “fog”.  Efforts to infuse the situation with any common sense were blocked.  

While hospitals were all but closed to any kind of normal activity (a bad time for an accident), countless people suffered unnecessary and in some cases dangerous and even fatal delays in needed medical care.  Those who have chronic conditions and need attention are told to stay home unless they qualify as coronavirus patients.  Meanwhile, whatever is in the hospital is listed as such, even when not accurate.  Hospitals, after all, have no other way to stay open.  If they are closed to regular care and so-called “elective” surgeries and treatments, and the sick are told to stay home if they don’t have the virus, how else can they pay their staff and keep the lights on?  This has resulted in untold misery and loss.  A young (26-year-old) mother died in childbirth of a condition which, had she been treated appropriately, would not have killed her, leaving a newborn son who will never know her, and she never living to see him.  Did this happen in Southeast Asia, in sub saharan Africa, in Afghanistan or Central America?  No.  It happened in New York.  In Michigan, a physician who himself needed immediate care was denied because the hospitals had been closed to all but coronavirus patients and abortion procedures.  He suffered a detached retina, which, if not repaired immediately, would result in loss of sight in the affected eye.  Because this was not an option, he was forced to travel a great distance to have the emergency surgery he required.  And these are just two of tens of thousands of people needing attention who cannot get it.

But it is not just medical care denied that is loading up the scales against continuing this obsession with the virus.  A 77-year-old barber felt he needed to open his shop finally.  Michigan has been shut down since March 10, now two months.  And by “shut down” we don’t mean sort of shut down.  In Michigan you don’t dare go as far as the sidewalk.  A militia decided to challenge the shutdown order and prevent the elderly man’s arrest.   In Texas, a salon operator decided she must open her shop because she and her employees were going hungry in order to feed their children.  The shutdown was unsustainable.  So the lady was arrested, tried (a bench trial - probably jury trials are also shut down), convicted and sentenced to 20 days in jail.  She maintained her dignity and the rightness of her stand, confronting the judge with her truth.  Fortunately for her, protestors crowd-funded half-a-million dollars to support her.and she won the support of the governor and the attorney general of her state and she was released.  Some have not been as lucky.  Rick Savage, owner of a Maine restaurant, felt he could wait no longer to open.  He was shut down - and lost his license to operate.  Some sheriffs in Arizona have stated that they will not be used as cat’s paws to enforce illegal usurpation of power and unenforceable edicts.  They have categorically refused to enforce them.

We are becoming a nation divided.  Some are tyrants (Gretchen Whitmer, Lauren Lightfoot, Anthony Fauci).  Some are defiant, fighting to save their businesses or just their freedom.  Some are defending them.  Some are panicked by the threat of sickness and still others are seemingly happy to be forced into compliance with even the most unreasonable orders which make them feel “safe”.  

It is becoming clear that reason is no longer a part of this “response”.  It is unprecedented in all but time of war that Americans have been subjected to this kind of dictatorship.  It is a peculiar feature of this situation that the more local the nature of the “authority”, the more draconian the orders and the attempts at enforcement.  The stealing of our rights is not coming from the top down but rather “federalistically”, through the abridgement of our Constitution by mayors, governors.  It is time to stop.  There are two directions from which this should come.  Attorney General Barr has announced that the DOJ may, in fact, become an active participant in support of those who are challenging abuse of authority and sheriffs, such as those in Arizona, who must refuse to abuse their authority and should not serve warrants for simply being open, for going to church, or congregating.  And if you think this is bad, some of these dictators are using the coronavirus to begin "tracking" you and recording your every move.  The governor of Washington is telling restaurants to collect information and store it on everyone who commits the crime of dining out.  Is this what Americans fought and died for? The corruption of this response is breathtaking.  There is now a bill introduced in Congress called the "TRACE" Act, appropriately numbered HR 6666, which would authorize our government to track us as the government of China tracks its people.  If you don't want to become an ant in the communist colony, please contact your congressman (phone number 202-224-3121).

We’ve heard the expression, and, in fact, in relation to this crisis, that the cure can be worse than the disease.  We are being told that it is a “health risk” to take your child to play in a park, to walk your dog, to go to the beach or the lake.  Businesses are dying, we all know this.  But something else is being murdered here - our Constitution.  Has anyone stopped to consider that these edicts are being used to destroy our rule of law?  An emergency public order should be that - a response to an emergency.  “Emergencies” do not last for three months.   All of these dictators tell us how they “hate” to do this to our businesses, our families, our children, our communities, our economy, our lives . . . but they are like robots.  Bent on their business regardless of common sense, science and reality itself.  We are told that all of this was necessary to “flatten the curve”.  It is supposed to keep our hospitals from being overwhelmed.  That was the point, right?  So how is it that Governor Cuomo dismissed the hospital ship, the Comfort, after its underuse (fewer than 130 patients treated there) and yet a young mother-to-be dies for lack of care despite her efforts to get help in time to save her life because the hospitals would not admit her?  How is it that beaches are closed when the virus dies in the sunlight?  

There is no doubt that crowds will help spread the virus, but there is also no doubt that warmth and sunlight will kill the virus.  

There has been a lot of advance planning.  This was alluded to in the press conference in Chicago, where last summer’s pandemic drill was described by the park director there.  A couple of things come to mind - one, why is there such chaos now? And two, what was this drill all about - was it more than the response that was in the planning?  It is one thing to be prepared for emergencies, but quite another to construct a permanent emergency paradigm.

We have another crisis rising, one which will be more difficult by far to address than this virus.  Diseases come and go, but freedom, once lost, will not be restored without a struggle.  It might be time now to consider re-starting the tea party movement.  Only this time we have a more fundamental impetus than the machinations of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or Obamacare.   We are looking at nothing less than the destruction of our entire way of life and the abolishment of our Constitution.  Others have fought and died to preserve these freedoms.  Some have risked hanging for it - John Adams and other patriots who knew that taking a stand for freedom would make them hunted men.  To them it was worth it.  

Compelling is the story of Anastasia Lin.  She is a young Chinese beauty queen and actress who escaped with her mother from communist China.  Her father is still in China.  She has been speaking out against the hideous human rights abuses perpetrated against her people by this communist government.  As a result, she has been approached - in Canada - by agents of that government, warning her that if she persists in “spreading rumors” about life in China they will punish her father, who is still there.  How’s that for human rights?  How would you like to have to make the decision Lin has had to make?  What would you do? 

Lin decided to keep speaking out because to be silenced would be tantamount to giving them a green light to continue to abuse and to blackmail those fortunate enough to have escaped.  They are a mafia.  In fact, it is known that tongs, Chinese mafia organizations, rule Chinatowns throughout the west, and maintain a reign of terror over the ordinary, law-abiding Chinese immigrants.  We should consider whether the conditions in China which give rise to these phenomena, even in American cities, are the kinds of conditions we should imitate in our country, in exchanging our Constitution and our God-given rights for the compulsory organization and destruction of human rights we see in China.  Life in China is such that their government is compelled to silence speech of its citizens.  No criticism is permitted.  Criticism results in severe punishment.  We see this in real time.  

When we have a Mayor Lightfoot or a Governor Whitmer who sound exactly like the official spokesmen of Red China we should step away from them, we should challenge them, we should realize that this is no longer about a disease.  It has become something else - it is arguable that it has been that from the beginning.  In some areas it has certainly worked out to look that way.  Hong Kong is a good example.  If the people of Hong Kong had guns it is highly likely that their revolt would already have been concluded, possibly in a victory for freedom.  As it is we may yet see a revolution of the kind we are seeing here in Arizona - where men of conscience simply refuse to become monsters.  

It’s time to convert this lockdown into a voluntary effort to avoid crowds, take care to wash our hands, avoid being around others when sick, etc., but quit with the quarantine.  There was a scene in the movie, La Vida Sigue Igual, the story of Spanish singer Julio Iglesias’ physical rehab following a disastrous car accident, wherein Iglesias asks to just stay at the rehab facility, to have a wheelchair.  The doctor says no.  “The hospital is for sick people.  You are no longer sick.”  The message was the sooner he got out with his crutches the sooner he would walk again.  A bit of very tough love toward a former soccer star, which Iglesias was.  

It’s time to stop the quarantine.  We are not a nation of sick people.  What made sense to slow the progress of a disease in order to beef up a medical response to it does not make any sense now.  It is still wise to avoid large crowds, perhaps wise to avoid unnecessary travel in public transportation.  But we can’t do this anymore.  We need to stay home if we are even slightly sick, and wear a mask if not well, when we must go out.  But we can’t do this any longer.  It was appropriate at one time; it is not now.  Yes, we will have an increase in cases, but maybe on the other hand, other lives will be saved who would otherwise be denied needed care.  “Elective” surgery (I really object to this term, by the way) which might determine the quality of the rest of one’s life should not be delayed interminably.  We are all mortal.  Even as we are staying in to “save lives” we are denying life itself.  Life means going about our business, speaking out freely, doing our best to pay our bills, take care of our families, do our work.  While we are sitting idly, in poverty, sometimes in hunger, waiting to be told what to do next, or what else we may not do, we are not living.  We are paying for parks and their upkeep.  We are also paying people to tell us we can’t go to them without being arrested and incarcerated.  Does this make sense to you?

We have a Constitution.  It is the Law of the Land.  The pronouncements, except in short-term emergencies, of  power-madmayors and governors are not the Law of our Land.   They are usurpation, plain and simple, and we must no longer tolerate it.