America’s response to the Coronavirus of shuttering daily life precipitates a social crisis in addition to the health care one.
The Bottom Line: “You can’t destroy the country to try and save it.” And that’s what we are doing by closing businesses and requiring “social distancing.” This strategy of retreat is unprecedented, and troubling.
We are attempting to preserve by fighting Coronavirus: our families, our faith and the American way of life
We’ve changed since we said after the September 11, 2001, attacks that if we don’t keep living our regular lives, then “we let the terrorists win.” By closing businesses and restricting movement, millions of Americans risk having their lives devastated by yet unknown social maladies. We are opening a Pandora’s Box.
We The People must demand of our leaders that free enterprise ought to persist while we respond to Coronavirus. Of course, we must take necessary precautions and follow directions as citizens, and already Americans are responding by curtailing their activities, staying closer to home, and even working remotely. But people who are unafraid, ought to be allowed to be brave. We need to permit business owners and corporations to use common sense and to keep America functioning; it is going to be difficult to turn America “back on” when and if Coronavirus is done with us or we are done with it.
In sports parlance, we have to play both offense and defense, not just defense. Now is the time to remember what we are attempting to preserve by fighting Coronavirus: our families, our faith and the American way of life.
We are running around with our hair on fire and creating hysteria and panic
We are running around with our hair on fire and creating hysteria and panic. As a country, we venerate irresponsibility. We drink too much, we smoke too much, and we eat too much. We have unprotected sex. People watch soft porn on Netflix. We are over-medicated, and dying of opiate abuse. More than half our marriages end in divorce. We spend more time each year planning our vacations than we do our finances. We have a dysfunctional, corrupt federal government, and many of our largest cities are unsafe or rife with homelessness. Our transportation systems are antiquated. Government unions make our lives miserable, but nobody protests because everybody has a brother-in-law who works for the county or a cousin who is a teacher.
Yet, we are the GOAT of countries. The Shining City on the Hill. We have enduring optimism. We believe in capitalism. We believe in freedom. We invent things and cure diseases. We free the world from tyranny. We believe a man’s word is his bond. We believe in giving people second chances. We believe in redemption. We believe “we’ve got this,” and have a “can-do” attitude. We shouldn’t be walking around scared of a virus. We fought a Revolution, became an industrial powerhouse, and then survived such challenges as Japan’s bombing Pearl Harbor, losing the Vietnam War, and the horrific 9/11 attacks.
In the days following, Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, a “Date that will live in infamy,” thousands of young American men enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces. Compare that to today’s college students who have been sent home because of Coronavirus. If we haven’t already, we ought to be converting our colleges and universities into emergency medical facilities and training these students in first aid. Now that would be an American response!
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What’s sadder, a six year old who dies of cancer or an 80 year old who dies of Coronavirus?
We can’t be afraid of a few thousand deaths or even 100,000 deaths. This is a country of 350 million people. There are going to be deaths. People die all the time. All of us are going to die someday, some of us sooner than expected because of Coronavirus. But in terms of perspective, more than a million Americans die each year before their time because of cancer, heart disease, smoking, car accidents, the flu, unintentional injuries, and by alcohol and drug abuse in FAR GREATER NUMBERS than will EVER die from the Coronavirus. That’s why this is a social crisis, because killing our economy and forcing us not to interact with each other is potentially FAR WORSE than the likely number of Coronavirus deaths.
What’s sadder, a six year old who dies of cancer or an 80 year old who dies of Coronavirus? They are both tragic, but life is for the living, and we have to endure in this great country by getting out of bed, putting on our clothes, going to work, and trying to feed our families. We believe in Freedom and Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That’s who we are.
In San Francisco, people are only being allowed to leave their homes for food, medicine, and to exercise, but not to go to work. Sure we should encourage telecommuting, but human beings need social interaction. People, especially men, need work to stay out of trouble. “The Devil will find work for idle hands to do.” Without being able to go to work, we are going to kill the American Dream for all of us, rich and poor, native and immigrant. The first predictions are that 50 percent of restaurants in New York City will never open again once closed. So far, we can still go for take-out food up until 8 p.m., but not sit in the restaurant and eat.
Very few healthy people are likely to die from Coronavirus
Very few healthy people are likely to die from Coronavirus. As of this writing, only six people had died in all of New Jersey. Five people ages 60 to 90 and one woman in her mid-50s, according to published reports. To lose anyone is sad, but to close an entire state and consider curfews? These are police state reactions and overreach; government ought not to be able to tell legal businesses that they should close.
The woman in New Jersey who died loved the horse races and attended all her life. She will have died in vain if there is nobody to replace her at the track. We have to keep the lights on for her. Hold sporting events, theater and other amusements and let the people who want to attend, go. Recommend strongly that they don’t go, but let the people decide. I was walking in midtown Manhattan the last two nights after 8 p.m., and the usually bustling city is sinking into anarchy and fear with only the marginalized of society stumbling about the streets and trains. This is because we have told the well-adjusted people to “shelter in place,” in other words to quarantine themselves.
The first thing we can do to quell the fear and panic is to require the media to stop reporting new “cases” of Coronavirus, because nearly every healthy person survives the disease. Around the world only 10,000 people have died and that’s not much on a planet of eight billion people. Here in America, as I have said repeatedly, the number of Coronavirus deaths annually will likely pale in comparison to the magnitude of deaths by other causes.
This is a social crisis as we watch businesses close, wealth diminished, and people having their movement restricted without protest. The good news, though, is that a recent opinion survey showed that only 17 percent of people believe the hysteria around Coronavirus as reported by the Mainstream Media. There is hope for our country and continuing the American Way of Life, in that, if nothing else.
Daniel Wiseman is an independent political commentator, who focuses on national and international affairs. He spent nine years as a professional journalist in Wyoming before working in fund-raising, non-profit management, and is now working in New York City. Wiseman focuses his writing on how to bring the United States back to its Constitutional moorings. He writes exclusively for Canada Free Press.
