Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The lost year: What the pandemic cost teenagers
Propublica ^ | 3/8/21 | Alec MacGillis

Posted on 03/10/2021 3:06:35 PM PST by volunbeer

Everything looks the same on either side of the Texas-New Mexico border in the great oil patch of the Permian Basin. There are the pump jacks scattered across the plains, nodding up and down with metronomic regularity. There are the brown highway signs alerting travelers to historical markers tucked away in the nearby scrub. There are the frequent memorials of another sort, to the victims of vehicle accidents. And there are the astonishingly deluxe high school football stadiums. This is, after all, the region that produced “Friday Night Lights.”

The city of Hobbs, population just under 40,000, sits on the New Mexico side, as tight to the border as a wide receiver’s toes on a sideline catch. From the city’s eastern edge to the Texas line is barely more than two miles. From Hobbs to the Texas towns of Seminole and Denver City is a half-hour drive — next door, by the standards of the vast Southwestern plains.

In the pandemic year of 2020, though, the two sides of the state line might as well have been in different hemispheres.

(Excerpt) Read more at propublica.org ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-84 next last
To: Gena Bukin

I certainly did not expect what I read.

I saw one very obvious dig at the beginning, but I don’t recall much after that.

It was as if they decided to use it as a political football just once more...and then told the truth because even they couldn’t look away from it.


41 posted on 03/10/2021 6:29:39 PM PST by rlmorel ("I’d rather enjoy a risky freedom than a safe servitude." Robby Dinero, USMC Veteran, Gym Owner)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: Bulwyf

It is awful. I have always felt as if I were far more upbeat and positive in my outlook on things, more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt, overlook things, etc.

I hate what this has done to me from that perspective. Hate it. I am trying to work myself up to a level where I can reach a positive equilibrium, but I see a lot of things that make me feel very un-Christian thoughts.

It makes me angry at the perpetrators of this, to see normal people who are terribly frightened by all this, and then to read that article...something I have known in my mind but felt it in my heart to read of these young kids being traumatized for no good reason.

We have stolen their present, and laid mines in their futures.


42 posted on 03/10/2021 6:37:04 PM PST by rlmorel ("I’d rather enjoy a risky freedom than a safe servitude." Robby Dinero, USMC Veteran, Gym Owner)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Repealthe17thAmendment; volunbeer; Larry Lucido; Shanty Shaker; BenLurkin; Tijeras_Slim; ...
As I have said before, early on, when not a lot was known publicly, and you saw images of people falling dead in the street in Communist China, and towns being shut off and quarantined, I was willing to go along with strong measures.

But around the end of March to middle of April, it was obvious to me it wasn't something that was like Bubonic Plague where 40-50% of people could die.

Part of this that is disturbing to me is the willingness of people to sit in front of the television at night allowing that filth to flow uncritically into their minds like a poison, that is an unsettling thing.

But the part that really bothers me is the way that a more fundamental rot of our society has come to the fore.

It is this obsession with...personal safety.

It has infused every single area of our lives: The State of Fear.

Michael Crichton wrote a novel "State of Fear" which dealt with the concept of Climate Change Alarmists who used the power of Fear as a tool to achieve their environmental and political goals.

Michael Crichton certainly wasn't like George Orwell writing "1984", or Ayn Rand writing "Atlas Shrugged", both novels about things that could be seen at the time they were being written, but had a long way to go before they could be thought to sound like current events. No more. Now, reading both "1984" and "Atlas Shrugged" BOTH sound very much like the current state of things.

But Michael Crichton was alive while the full court press for global warming/climate change fear-mongering was in full swing, so it is accurate. Fear being used as a tool, and changing the population by indoctrinating the young, threatening industry with boycott, divestment, or sanctions (setting up protection rackets to profit from the threats) and personal attacks on those who disagree or speak out against them.

And it has metastasized through our culture, destroying personal freedom. There is a massive movement out there to protect you from yourself. Everything from legislation to limit behavior, building codes and consumer regulations (that inhibit industry to protect consumers from things that may be exceedingly rare) to sugary drinks or alcohol taxed in an attempt for a nanny state to discourage consumption and remove freedom of choice in matters.

People are so damn whipsawed by the relentless government, entertainment, and media that tells them one day that drinking wine is bad, and with a completely straight face, say the next day that it is good for you. There are people who listen to that crap and are always doing this or that because some news outlet or...Google...says you should or shouldn't do it for this reason or that reason.

There are people who, if they could do it, would wrap themselves in bubble wrap to prevent a skinned elbow, and force others to do it as well. For their own good.

It brings to mind that utterly famous quote by C.S. Lewis: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."

This constant state of fear is corrosive and destructive, and in nearly all cases, deliberately so.

People in fear will do things normal people in normal circumstances would not agree to. And there are people out there who understand and believe this in the most malignant of ways and nefarious of purposes.

43 posted on 03/10/2021 7:15:21 PM PST by rlmorel ("I’d rather enjoy a risky freedom than a safe servitude." Robby Dinero, USMC Veteran, Gym Owner)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: rlmorel

your last sentence key focus, correct

now tie that into fear hysteria 24/7/365 from all majpr media, on purpose

and the fact they run this lie belief that not wearing a mask means you sont care, or want others to die, or that you’re killing others not wearing a mask

and the frigging vaxxers who believe they have a moral claim on others to be vaccinated, not for their own health, but for THEIR health

they don’t give a crap if you are damaged or die from the vaccine because its never been about YOUR health

you see because you have a moral or socieral obligation to be injured or die for others - they totally believe that

you dont get personal choice because their health fears trump your personal medical choices

and its even more control over people they could ever hope to achieve otherwise


44 posted on 03/10/2021 7:51:55 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not Averse to Going Bronson.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: volunbeer

This is a poorly-written article. It never describes how Kooper Davis died and implies that his death was related to the ban on athletics. However, I read from another source that he died of a brain hemorrhage.


45 posted on 03/10/2021 8:02:12 PM PST by Fiji Hill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: volunbeer

This is why liberals don’t WANT different states/cities/countries with different approaches. It may reveal that their approach was wrong.


46 posted on 03/10/2021 8:04:53 PM PST by tbw2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

They didn’t lock down like this when the same London imperial model predicted 150 million dead of bird flu in 2005.

Bird flu pandemic ‘could kill 150m’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/30/birdflu.jamessturcke


47 posted on 03/10/2021 8:08:57 PM PST by tbw2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Fiji Hill

I don’t know how he died. I assumed from the article that he committed suicide. We have had several young people do that (well above normal) here in my city. The article referenced that he was undergoing counseling and was upset that school (and football) were shut down.

I think the point of the article is that you have two populations of children only miles apart. One has been in school and is living a relatively normal life. The other, thanks to a policy that does not appear to be justified by science, is not living a normal life.


48 posted on 03/10/2021 8:10:23 PM PST by volunbeer (Find the truth and accept it - anything else is delusional)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: volunbeer

They didn’t lock down like this when the same London imperial model predicted 150 million dead of bird flu in 2005.

Bird flu pandemic ‘could kill 150m’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/30/birdflu.jamessturcke


49 posted on 03/10/2021 8:11:20 PM PST by tbw2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Larry Lucido

Propublica article comparing Texas and New Mexico small towns 10-20 miles from each other, with the epidemic of suicide on the NM side.


50 posted on 03/10/2021 8:12:31 PM PST by tbw2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Alberta's Child

Standing alone in your gun lane is pretty socially distanced.


51 posted on 03/10/2021 8:14:17 PM PST by tbw2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: Bulwyf

They didn’t lock down like this when the same London imperial model predicted 150 million dead of bird flu in 2005.

Bird flu pandemic ‘could kill 150m’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/30/birdflu.jamessturcke


52 posted on 03/10/2021 8:14:31 PM PST by tbw2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: rlmorel

They didn’t lock down like this when the same London imperial model predicted 150 million dead of bird flu in 2005.

Bird flu pandemic ‘could kill 150m’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/30/birdflu.jamessturcke


53 posted on 03/10/2021 8:14:53 PM PST by tbw2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: Fiji Hill

The deaths due to suicide, drug overdose and stroke and cardiac patients who were too afraid to go to the hospital offset the decline in car accident deaths in 2020.

A lot of people refused to go to the doctor in general out of fear. When my firstborn child had a suspected concussion and possible dislocated shoulder from a fall, we took her to the pediatrician. I had to say it was an emergency, repeatedly, to get her in. Shoulder was just really bruised, was a concussion. They said if she’d landed at more of an angle head down, she could have had a serious concussion or worse ...

What was horrifying was the follow-up. The doctors were not surprised I had to fight to get her in. They were surprised I brought her back for followups, both the pediatrician and orthopedist.

They had seen children whose parents had delayed care out of fear of the Wuhan virus, though that was causing serious complications down the road.

I am certain that the death toll from delayed healthcare will far exceed the deaths attributed to the virus. That is because cancer screenings and preventative care are not happening.


54 posted on 03/10/2021 8:20:46 PM PST by tbw2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: Secret Agent Man

The deaths due to suicide, drug overdose and stroke and cardiac patients who were too afraid to go to the hospital offset the decline in car accident deaths in 2020.

A lot of people refused to go to the doctor in general out of fear. When my firstborn child had a suspected concussion and possible dislocated shoulder from a fall, we took her to the pediatrician. I had to say it was an emergency, repeatedly, to get her in. Shoulder was just really bruised, was a concussion. They said if she’d landed at more of an angle head down, she could have had a serious concussion or worse ...

What was horrifying was the follow-up. The doctors were not surprised I had to fight to get her in. They were surprised I brought her back for followups, both the pediatrician and orthopedist.

They had seen children whose parents had delayed care out of fear of the Wuhan virus, though that was causing serious complications down the road.

I am certain that the death toll from delayed healthcare will far exceed the deaths attributed to the virus. That is because cancer screenings and preventative care are not happening.


55 posted on 03/10/2021 8:22:08 PM PST by tbw2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: olivia3boys

I wonder how many elite parents are starting to realize this is necessary.

The Miseducation of America’s Elites
Affluent parents, terrified of running afoul of the new orthodoxy in their children’s private schools, organize in secret.
https://www.city-journal.org/the-miseducation-of-americas-elites


56 posted on 03/10/2021 8:24:02 PM PST by tbw2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: volunbeer
I don’t know how he died. I assumed from the article that he committed suicide.

That's what I assumed when I first read the article, but apparently he did not.

57 posted on 03/10/2021 8:24:06 PM PST by Fiji Hill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: tbw2

Thanks!


58 posted on 03/10/2021 8:24:19 PM PST by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: tbw2
I am certain that the death toll from delayed healthcare will far exceed the deaths attributed to the virus. That is because cancer screenings and preventative care are not happening.

I have been saying since the lockdowns began back in March, 2020 that the response to the virus will kill a hell of a lot more people than will the virus itself.

59 posted on 03/10/2021 8:27:14 PM PST by Fiji Hill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: tbw2

Yup

what really ticks me off is i cant go in with my pets at the vet

they are easily stressed and develop problems from stressful incidents, all by themselves

and its all perpetrated on a lie of false positives because the pcr tests were run so many times coca cola test positive when run 35-40 times

people will say they are running them lower now but for the last year they were not and thars what these places are basing their policies on to prevent people from coming in with their pets

flipping dam ridiculous


60 posted on 03/10/2021 8:31:07 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not Averse to Going Bronson.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 55 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-84 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson