Posted on 04/06/2020 4:00:45 AM PDT by Kaslin
In a powerful monologue questioning the wisdom of these draconian, economy-killing shutdowns, Fox News host Tucker Carlson noted the tendency of our “opinion making class” to portray those who express concern about the U.S. economy as being guilty of a “kind of moral crime.”
“Our leaders still seem far more afraid of a virus that probably kills fewer than 1 percent of those infected than the prospect of a third of all Americans losing their jobs,” Carlson said Thursday night. “We don’t judge anyone for that … Still, this is a moment, it will pass. A year from now, what will seem scarier? The Chinese coronavirus or the economic devastation it wrought?”
Among those guilty of this so-called “moral crime” was Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who as an older American expressed his personal desire to take the risk of going back to work so his grandchildren could “live in the America” he has. “Almost immediately the media outrage machine began belching smoke and making loud noises,” Carlson said of the media’s reaction to Patrick, “as if he was trying to kill the elderly to boost Exxon share prices.”
Another scandalous ‘moral’ thought-criminal was Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who last week wrote that people should “evaluate the total societal cost of this awful disease and try to put things into perspective.”
“Imagine the potential psychological and human toll if this shutdown continues indefinitely, unemployment reaches 20% or higher, as some now predict, and we sink into a deep recession or depression,” Johnson wrote in an op-ed that drew the ire of plenty of Twitter blue-check elites: “Your death is an acceptable loss for Ron Johnson's 401(k), according to Ron Johnson -- who is not volunteering in hospitals without a mask,” wrote Walter Schaub. HuffPost reporter Arthur Delaney accused the senator of “downplaying death” because he called it "an unavoidable part of life." (It’s not?)
But here’s what Johnson wrote: “Every premature death is a tragedy but death is an unavoidable part of life. 2.8-M die each year. 61K deaths in the 2018 flu season. Can you imagine the panic if those statistics were attributed to a new virus and reported nonstop?”
In other words, when it comes to saving lives, it’s always more complicated than the Twitter blue-check masters-of-morality would have us believe. Some variation of ‘every death is one too many’ is the virtuous thing to say, and we’ve heard it a lot lately when it comes to coronavirus, especially when pretty much anyone in the medical field is interviewed on television. Thus, any state-enforced action, no matter how draconian, is deemed justifiable because it could ‘save a life’ from coronavirus. “Could,” because we can’t possibly know for sure how effective, say, not allowing people to get their pets groomed or keep their cleaning appointments with their dentists would be in stopping the spread. Everyone agrees that *something* had to be done, of course. The question is, did that *something* have to go as far as it has gone and continues to go? And why on earth does asking it make one somehow a ‘moral monster’?
During the aforementioned segment, Carlson played a clip from Dr. Anthony Fauci that gave some, uh, insight on when this current shutdown madness might end: “When it goes down to essentially no new cases, no deaths.” Soooo, when might that be, good doctor? A month from now? Six months from now? He doesn’t know, and neither does anyone else. Is half of America going bankrupt - and all the suffering and deaths that would eventually entail - an acceptable cost to bring the coronavirus case count to zero?
For some inexplicable reason, we’ve turned over decision-making in this country to healthcare professionals whose single, solitary goal is to save *every* possible life from coronavirus and only coronavirus. In theory and absent all other considerations it’s an admirable goal, but its implementation is far from the “first, do no harm” of the Hippocratic Oath, mainly because of the actual *doing harm* involved in putting the lives of present and future coronavirus victims over everyone else’s.
As I write this, coronavirus cases have topped 1 million globally and are approaching 350,000 in the U.S. Assuming most who have reportedly died from COVID-19 wouldn’t have also died from the cold, the flu, or any other virus that attacked their already compromised immune systems (Yes, I think that’s a stretch because the vast majority of deaths have had some sort of underlying health condition), the disease has claimed almost 70,000 worldwide and is approaching 10,000 in this country. That number will be larger when this goes online, possibly much larger. Still, as Johnson touched on, it likely won’t be as large as the 125,000 globally who have died from seasonal flu so far this year, or the 440,000 dead from HIV/AIDs, or 260,000 from malaria, or the 280,000 suicides, or the 220,000 who have died globally from water-related diseases which are entirely preventable. And how about the more than 2.1 million lost cancer victims, or the 350,000 we lost from deadly car accidents?
While this virus percentage-wise could probably end up being somewhat more deadly than the seasonal flu, it still seems staggeringly incapable of justifying the overbearing, hysterical global response thus far.
Continuing the theme on Friday night, Tucker criticized the wisdom of putting medical professionals like Dr. Fauci essentially in charge of the economy. Tens of millions unemployed is a “far bigger disaster than the virus itself, by any measure,” the Fox News host contended. “Tony Fauci, decent as he may be, can’t see that, because he doesn’t think it’s his job to see it. But even a doctor should be able to think beyond the models. Our response to coronavirus could turn this into a far poorer nation. Poor countries are unhealthy countries, always and everywhere. In poor countries, people die of treatable diseases. In poor countries, people are far more vulnerable to obscure viruses, like the one we are fighting now. You want to keep Americans from dying before their time? Then don’t impoverish them.”
This, from someone who was truly the tip of the spear for the idea of taking coronavirus seriously from the start. Yes, everyone agrees that certain measures had to be taken, but if we end up continuing to let the ‘cure’ be worse than the disease ever would have been, millions upon millions of newly poverty-stricken Americans will look back and wonder if it all was worth it.
A Moral Crime? Of course not. It just shows a lack of understanding of the seriousness of this disease.
Actually, maybe. To the extent that people haven’t informed themselves because of laziness, or willingly in a state of denial, it might actually be a moral crime.
The latest in virtue signaling around here is to put a prissy little sign out front - usually next to their coexist sign - saying “we stay home,” or something to the effect.
It’s a legitimate argument. If two and a half or so million people a year die anyway from all causes if we go through a year where no one gets a chance to die from anything else, it’s a wash. Of course that would require a MAJOR change in “Healthcare Policy”. If the success of ventilators is single digits we need to, at this time, quit using ventilators altogether. Give people the best support you can up to that point. Quit wasting MASSIVE resources for almost no benefit.
IOW, the “outworking” of the proposed policy changes would extend into areas previously unthinkable. Maybe it is time to start thinking those thoughts.
People stop taking warnings seriously when so-called experts keep crying wolf by conflating risks beyond reality.
Yes especially if they are friends and prior employees of Hillary Clinton
‘And why on earth does asking it make one somehow a ‘moral monster’?’
I ran smack into this nonsense on a local FB page, when I hypothesized that a small group of people bicycling did not constitute an existential threat to he community; my feed back would have been kinder if I had suggested a wife beating contest one night a week, or some such thing...
Danny, it seems that anyone who disagrees with you is either lazy, uninformed or self deluded (a lot of those people are serious scientists at places like Stanford, Johns Hopkins, MIT and Oxford University). It must be quite a burden to you to be omniscient. I feel free to ask tough questions and be skeptical there are no omniscient people - you excepted.
‘It just shows a lack of understanding of the seriousness of this disease.’
you’re referring to the World Health Organization, and its ‘medical experts’ spreading end time apocalypse and praising China for originating this contagion and then obfuscating its existence; you know, the types claiming millions of deaths as a certainty...that’s what you’re referring to, right...?
Tucker is absolutely right. This disease kills a small small percentage here in America then the people who have been diagnosed with it. We have better medical Care so, better testing, better respirators etc.
I am afraid the restaurant industry will never recover. People are going to be too afraid to just sit next to p2eople. I’m pretty sure they’re also going to get very used to sitting in their cars and waiting for the clerk to get all of their stuff.
The entertainment industry is shot. who wants to sit next to a person and watch a play or a dance recital or anything like that hi. Hotels, and airlines are also never going to recover really. People are just too afraid.
I told my children 20 and 24, that they’re quite lucky they are old enough that they can remember what it was like pre-Coronavirus, live through it, and then experience a totally different world. I’m old enough too, I’m old enough to remember the Cold war and the Ronald Reagan Gorbachev. “Year down this wall!”
I have been thinking the same thing.
Are we evil if we see this as a serious threat to the future stability of the nation?
And let’s run the models in that regard too. We are into the surge of national destruction, so at what point do we change behavior?
Flattening the curve on covid-19...flattening the curve on the economy...at some point they cross. It is at that point we are all dead.
Enough with that nonsense already.
Corobnavirus does not even come close to being as serious or as dangerous as heart disease or cancer. The fact that coronavirus is infectious doesn't make it more dangerous than cancer or heart disease whickh kill millions every single year.
I don't recall anyone shutting down entire economies because of those diseases.
Coronavirus is by far the most over hyped disease in history.
Way past time to stop this economy destroying lock-down already.
By the way, “flattening the curve” is being used as a magic incantation. The intent of using the term is to preempt our own critical thinking and to prevent hard questioning regarding the use of police state tactics in “fighting the virus”.
The restaurant industry will come back but you have to get the virus to stop circulating in the community before people have confidence to use them.
Knowing that they can get quick effective tests and treatment if they do get it, helps too.
That sounds about like it.
This to me shows how much the population of this country has been accustom to being a wealthy country. That is, the general population has never known hunger or want.
The people in general assume that we will always be wealthy. Regardless of how the world economy goes we will always have enough.
Well people, wake up! If the entire world shuts down 1/3 or more of their economies for 2 or more months we will be in major economic depression.
That is a major cut in tax revenue.
When our Federal Government was already spending 3 Trillion dollars a year and then adds another 3 Trillion dollars in spending to deal with the pandemic but the 1/3 of the economy that is shut down stops paying taxes we are talking a recipe for inflation or hyperinflation.
If I wanted to live in Venezuela, I wouldn’t bring Venezuela here I would go there.
Why do we not shutdown all rail traffic for fear of spilling chemicals during a train wreck?
why not shutter all refineries and chemical plants because there may be a terrorist attack employed against them?
More than likely the wussification of America is complete and Agenda 21 is proceeding as planned due to the buy in of the sheople to lies, more lies and damn lies.
Enjoy your last few days of freedom.
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