Immured in Michigan on a prison gin gray overcast day, a thought occurred: What if they’re wrong?
I am not talking about the dissenters to “lockdown” measures or those protesters demanding the restoration of their liberty and the resuscitation of their livelihoods. We know the consequences these contrarians to the conventional wisdom already confront, because the pandemic policymakers deem them to be dead wrong.
Armed with this presumption of guilt, the elitist media has smeared them as “virus deniers,” right-wing conspiracy theorists, gun nuts, Trump cultists, reckless, heartless, and of course, “murderers.” They even gave a poor man who opposed the lockdowns and later died of the virus a mocking obituary in the self-professed “compassionate” media.
Undaunted, writers like American Greatness’s intrepid Julie Kelly have argued against the draconian lockdown orders that are devastating people’s physical and mental health as well as their family finances. The pending economic depression will only exacerbate this tragic toll of human suffering.
This contrarian chorus grows, with Fox News’ Brit Hume adding his voice to those wondering if the pandemic policymakers got it wrong:
I think it’s time to consider the possibility…that this lockdown—as opposed to the more moderate mitigation efforts—is a colossal public policy calamity. That the damage to the economy, businesses that I see, businesses are closing. Many may not reopen. Those jobs will be lost. Those businesses will be lost. Those incomes will be lost.
Plus, the effect on children who don’t have their normal life. They don’t have school. They can’t play with their friends, even outdoors. All these things are accumulating. They’re not going to get better. They’re going to get worse with time. And, as I say, we may not recover from many of these losses for a very long time if ever.
In response, the “Quaranteam” crowd will shriek, “better red than dead, you murderer!” or a similarly witty riposte to justify continuing the lockdowns. But what do you expect from people who consider the statement “you can do nothing” to be an expression of encouragement rather than a command to a prisoner?
What one should expect, and what one deserves, when all is said and done regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, is accountability.
In the initial rush of events, the Left has been all about establishing guilt to affix blame to their opponents. This is less about accountability—or evidence—than it is about advancing their regressive agenda.
Laying the blame for the pandemic at President Trump’s door, and accusing sundry Republican governors of also having blood on their hands, the Left refuses to put partisan gain aside for the good of the country. Indeed, the Left is refusing to hold accountable the Chinese Communist regime, which, with the help of the World Health Organization, covered up the COVID-19 outbreak and allowed it to go global.
No, for the Left, the Communist regime in Beijing and their wholly-owned subsidiary, the WHO, are just the latest victims of Trump and the racism and xenophobia of his deplorables. The Left’s astounding cognitive dissonance and mendacious refusal to condemn Beijing and the WHO’s lethal malfeasance bodes ill for the prospect of accountability.
Nevertheless, it is imperative for the future of public health to seek that accountability. During this pandemic, true accountability for one’s decisions and actions will require objective analysis of the pertinent medical, scientific, public health, economic, financial, social, cultural, and political criteria necessary to inform people what measures worked and what measures didn’t. And who got it wrong and who got it right. It may well take years to sift through this data or for every answer to be properly gleaned and instilled for future pandemics.
If the lockdowns’ dissenters are proven wrong, their condemnation will continue and intensify—and deservedly so.
Yet, the elitist media is wedded to the lockdown policy. Given the time lag to process the data objectively and make responsible determinations, if the pro-lockdown policymakers are proven wrong, will they be held accountable?
Or will pandemic policymakers become the latest elite deemed “too big to fail”?