COVID-19 Crisis Is Bringing In A New America

Today, I believe that we are witnessing the sun setting on the America as many of us once knew it from our founding and the too often regurgitated phrase and belief of this being the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.  Under the cloud of the COVID-19 Pandemic governments all over the world have grabbed huge fistfuls of power simply by edict, an official order or proclamation issued by a person in authority.  In other words, they just took it.  To me, it is one thing to see the governments of former monarchial nations doing it, where it is culturally ingrained that the power originates with the government, but to see this happening in a nation that was established for the power to come from the people to the government it is quite stunning and very sad.  America has never just shut down it’s economy due to sickness.  Never!  Ever!  Think about that.  But, for some reason we are to believe that a virus that approximately 97% of people who contracts it recovers from it caused the government of the United States to demand, via the several incorporated States, to shut down and send over 30 million citizens to the unemployment lines, causing unimaginable economic ripples that will negatively affect this nation for a very long time.

The other day I was watching a documentary on the late great comedian Richard Pryor.  I had forgotten how much the “N” word was used back then in the 1970s as well as Honky, referring to Caucasians, i.e., White people.  They showed a clip from the Saturday Night Live with Pryor and great comedian Chevy Chase where they are volleying the words Honky and the vaunted “N” word.  That’s when SNL was truly edgy, politically incorrect, and funny.  What does this have to do with today’s COVID scare crisis?  Nothing.  Unless you see as the 1970s and 80’s governmental policies silently moved to more directly control and manipulate how Americans communicate with each other via social manipulation vehicles such as “political correctness”.   The government expanded interjecting itself into the lives of Americans far outside of the bounds of the Constitution.

Government Grows In Crisis

If someone from America of the 1780s, the 1840s,  the 1930s, and the 1970s, who loved and appreciated freedom, were suddenly placed in the America of today I believe that they would be greatly disturbed and shocked at the degree that the government now controls how the citizens communicate with each other through mechanisms such as political correctness [PC].  The government’s ability to force the shuttering of millions of businesses has been based on the notion that it can save people from getting sick or dying, even by direct force.  The government has communicated the notion that it has the power of saving one person or a group of citizens from dying from COVID-19 is worth the confinement of a nation of over 300 million people and the forced unemployment of 30 million of them and wreaking economic havoc.  And coupled with political correctness, saying or the demonstration of anything that could have the vague appearance of “offending” anyone has created a firtle ground for government word yoga and word manipulation.  Phrases such as “We’re in it together.” We need everyone to be safe, otherwise no one can be safe.”, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo stated as he imposed his Statewide Shutdown Executive Order.  Governor Cuomo can be the poster boy for Progressive Leftism today for being so brash with his remarkably intellectually absurd statements like the one he made as reported 3/24/20 by syracuse.com regarding his shutdown of his State “It’s lives. It’s grandmothers and grandfathers and sisters and brothers. That’s what this is about,” he said during a press briefing in New York City today. “It’s about my mother. It’s about your mother. It’s about your loved one. And we will do anything we can to make sure that they are protected. “My mother is not expendable. Your mother is not expendable. We’re not going to accept a premise that human life is disposable. And we’re not going to put a dollar figure on human life. The first order of business is save lives, whatever it costs.”    Huh … that’s interesting because when I read Article 1, Sec. 1 of the State of New Yorks Constitution it says that the first order of the government is to ensure that, “No member of this state shall be disfranchised, or deprived of any of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the law of the land.” It’s like the coach trying to convince or motivate you to “take one for the team”, or probably more directly, sacrifice yourself for the benefit of the others.  Maybe I am misreading it. But it is this type of posture whereby the government seeks to take the role of caregiver of its citizens, as what I refer to as a Feminine Ego posture that most closely relates to a socialistic culture, where one is more disposed to look first to consider the needs of others and are more willing to give up their freedoms and liberties for the benefit of others, rather than of a Masculine Ego posture of the traditional American capitalistic culture, where one is more likely to take on a more self- determined posture and favors personal security above all else.  I would believe that personal security would include being able to provide economically for one’s self and family.  Wouldn’t you?

Think of a mother telling her young son, or daughter, to go outside and play, but not to get hurt or scraped up. There is a confusing conflict in purpose here and a desired outcome that is not realistic.  It cannot be expected to send a child outside to play and not get hurt or scraped up to some degree. That’s not to say that injuries are guaranteed to happen.  It’s just the expectation of not getting hurt as a young child involved in outside play that is not realistic.  It should be an accepted risk for going outside.  The alternative is for the mother to forbid the child from going outside to play at all to ensure his or her freedom from injury.  This is a Nanny State, as it relates to government. This is socialism, where the State assumes the responsibility and ultimate care of it’s citizens, i.e., it knows best.

You Cannot Escape Death Even With Government

There are two definites of life.  One is that we are born. And the other is that we die.  This is an undeniable truth.  Government cannot naturally change once time to pass over.  But, you as a free American can determine your life.  But, I have not heard any politician take this position during this “crisis”.  The government has taken on the position that it will do everything it can to prevent one death from COVID-19. And if one person even gets infected it is front-page news.  And if a thousand people die from it than it is a crisis.  Nevermind the fact that 647,457 died of heart disease alone in the country in 2017, according to the CDC, without any fanfare.  The absence of direct, frank, and honest talk and communication in this environment of extreme PC has allowed a health issue, regarding this coronavirus that is from the same family as the common cold and the common flu, to blow up into an acceptable excuse to shutdown the most prosperous economic economy on the planet.  Again, this has never ever, ever, never ever been done before in the entire history of this nation.  NEVER!

What’s Different In Today’s America

What is so different today in America?  Simply put, there are more Americans today who have been conditioned to willingly give up individual freedom for promised security by the government.  According to a 3/25/20 report in the washingtonexaminer.com,  “Nearly 3 in 4 registered voters favor a U.S. quarantine that would halt all public activity, with the exception of grocery store and pharmacy visits.”  Question, who’s working and growing the economy under this scenario?  This coupled with the absence of frank and open discussion that may offend some people and make them look more closely at how they are conducting their lives when it comes to diet, nutrition, personal hygiene, and their degree of personal responsibility will never bring true resolution of this crisis– not just regarding America today, but its posterity.  We cannot not talk about resolutions to this COVID-19 “crisis” and how it appears to negatively affect the black-American community, and other minority and low-income communities, and not talk about the severe lack of proper nutrition and diet and unhealthy lifestyle choices.  We cannot not talk about the nutritional deficiencies that are found in the elderly population, as well as more increasingly the youth, when it comes to “underlined health issues” that make them more susceptible to this virus, and others.

But, all of the solutions that we should be discussing and debating would lead more to individual freedom and responsibility and less governmental influence, and away from a Nanny State and governmental control, i.e., socialism.  And there are just too many who are invested in bringing forth the latter.  But at the end of the day, we Americans must realize and regain the comfort that without self-responsibility there is no freedom.  And there is no America as it was intended to be.