We currently live in an era of absurdity, uncertainty, and stupidity. The COVID-19 virus has taken center stage around the world and most of us are confined to our homes awaiting an end to the isolation stations in which we are living.
When I first heard of the Corona virus and about how everybody was rushing to the stores to buy toilet paper, I wondered if coronavirus caused explosive diarrhea. Why else would people stock up on toilet paper? Oh, yeah – greed, right? More likely – fear.
But wait! There's more! Because in a press conference, our president referred to COVID-19 as the Chinese virus, some intellectually-challenged individuals blame the Chinese for spreading the disease and are waging war with people who had nothing to do with the virus. More nonsense!
And then some governor or mayor or somebody (I don't care to remember his name) started talking about how old people should give up their lives to save the economy. What? Now some weirdo wants to wage a war between the economy and people? Don't PEOPLE contribute to the economy? What is the economy WITHOUT PEOPLE?
Oh, wait, I get it! Old people, who worked their whole lives, who contributed to the economy their whole lives, and who now receive Social Security benefits they deserve, BECAUSE THEY PAID INTO IT, should sacrifice their lives so the economy can thrive?
Um, no, I still don't get it. Dying to save the economy? Let me ask – who thinks we can save the economy by allowing older people to die? Does any of that make any sense to anybody? What an absurd premise! The economy can recover, survive, and even thrive when this Corona virus crisis ends, but unless we are all Jesus Christ, we, the people, cannot come back from death. And, though some may find what I'm about to say hard to believe, some people love those old people! In other words, their lives matter!
Other "news sources" from the United States complain that the Corona virus is a ploy by the Democrats to unseat our current president. WHY would Republicans blame Democrats for something that started in China? If you have any logical ability at all, you can see that the whole Democratic plot to get Trump out of office is illogical and unreasonable. And Trump affirming this ridiculous notion and putting all of us at risk for contracting this deadly (to some) virus, is DANGEROUS!
Let's "reason" this out – OK, so we must have sent undercover agents/murderers, Democrats obviously, to China to create a super virus and we injected it into as many people as we could find. Then we waited for it to spread around the world as we waited for it to come to the United States so we could get Trump out of office. Is that how Republicans saw it playing out? Oh, and we did it to save Social Security? I can't differentiate that "logic" from ABSURDity and STUPIDity.
Maybe THAT ridiculous "logical" explanation is the actual hoax! As this world makes less and less sense to me, I find it difficult to comprehend the mindset of this current administration and its cohorts, Fox News.
COVID-19, aka, the Corona virus, is a health issue, folks – it is not a Democratic coup against the president. It is not a Democrat vs. Republican issue and it doesn't affect the United States alone. It is GLOBAL. Other countries do NOT vote for OUR president.
Like shouting fire in a crowded theater, what is happening in the United States is unconscionable. When this administration puts us in danger by dismissing something as important as a worldwide virus that is literally killing thousands of people and putting millions of us at risk, WE suffer the consequences!
In a famous legal case, Schenck vs. United States, the Supreme Court ruled on March 3, 1919, that the 1st Amendment regarding free speech could be restricted if words, spoken or printed, represented a "clear and present danger" to society. Whether you cause mass hysteria in a crowded theater by shouting, "FIRE!" when no fire exists, or you tell people to gather together when you have learned from experts the risks involved if they do, you ignore the advice of the CDC, you undermine experts and care more about how the currently disastrous economy will affect your re-election than you do the people who contribute to that economy, you might as well tell people to lick toilet seats in subways to prove experts wrong.
In contrast to the "leadership" in the U.S., Queen Elizabeth showed grace, dignity, compassion, and leadership when she addressed the citizens of her country. She thanked the first responders and supported the experts who agree that this pandemic is worth saving the people in her country and around the world. In the face of this GLOBAL crisis, we need to listen to experts in the fields of science and medicine, and not discount what is factually happening.
If we practice social distancing – or physical distancing – we COULD recover from this pandemic. However, too many people STILL believe that COVID-19 is a hoax, that the Corona virus is just the flu, and that they, like the girl who created a lick-a-toilet-seat-coronavirus-challenge to prove that you can't get Corona at her age (22), contribute to the spread this virus. #StayHome
