Mask Hysteria
If ever a treatment was worse than the disease, this was it.
If this past year has taught us anything, it’s that even Americans can be so easily manipulated, they will quickly surrender their freedom and liberties, including those enshrined in the Constitution.
All that was required was that those with political authority scared us into acquiescence by pretending that a virus that was far less lethal than the seasonal flu marked the return of the Black Plague.
The people who died were the old and those with decrepit immune systems. To put it crudely, it thinned the herd. But, of course, to increase our terror and dependence, anyone who was suffering from pneumonia, the flu, heart disease, cancer or diabetes, but was also found to test positive for Covid, had his or her death attributed to the virus.
That was how they managed to run up the death toll to over half a million in the U.S. On its own, it’s doubtful if the Wuhan virus killed even a tenth of them.
But if ever a treatment was worse than the disease, this was it. It was when it came to suicides, increased drug addiction and intoxication, domestic violence and childhood depression, that the numbers soared into the stratosphere.
When you also consider the number of businesses that went bust and the number of people suddenly unemployed, you begin to get a true idea of the cost to the nation.
And all along, the mayors and governors were playing us. They proved they didn’t take the threat seriously every time we caught them dining out, having their hair done and getting on a plane to take a vacation. We even saw Dr. Fauci, who should be famous for saying “I’m not really a doctor, I only play one on TV,” at a baseball game, sitting knee-to-knee between two people and not wearing his mask.
Even today, after we’ve been told repeatedly that we all need to get vaccinated and most people have been, Biden and his stooges are telling us we still must don our masks and maintain our distance.
In the meantime, the schools, for the most part, are still shut down, as are the churches and synagogues. Baseball games are taking place, but with attendance capped at about 25% capacity.
It is bewildering trying to figure out what messages Biden is sending us. He made a big deal of getting his two shots, but five months later, he’s still sporting the mask, even when he’s taking part in a ZOOM call. And both he and Kamala Harris are still pretending that social distancing is required on all occasions.
As an American, I found it embarrassing that at his speech to the joint session of Congress, only a fraction of the 535 members were able to attend, even though all of them have been vaccinated. When the dumb affair was over, and Biden had uttered his final trillion-dollar platitude, it was ludicrous seeing him exchanging fist and elbow bumps with Pelosi, Harris and the various politicians in attendance who wanted to get a second of facetime on TV, even if we only got to see half their face.
Which brings us to the one hour, seven minute, address itself.
It was, as expected, boring in the extreme. People, other than I, seemed surprised that Biden could stand and speak that long. I have come to believe that reports of his physical and mental frailty have been widely over-exaggerated.
Maybe because I have had personal experience with people suffering from dementia, I feel safe in assuring you that he may not be sound as a dollar, but he’s as sound as 87 cents.
And with Kamala in the wings, let’s hope he stays that way.
It was a given that he was going to claim that corporations and the very wealthy would pick up the tab for his seven trillion-dollar ($7,000,000,000,000) wish list. But that is bullshit. If you confiscated every last dime from America’s 600-odd billionaires, you’d only come up with about four trillion dollars.
And although corporations make for a handy punching bag, especially now that they’ve all become so damn woke, people never seem to grasp what happens when you increase corporate taxes. If they gave it even a moment’s thought, they would realize that four things occur with the predictability of the sun’s rising in the east.
First, they fire employees.
Next, they cut dividends to all those widows and pensioners who own their stock.
Then they raise the price on their merchandise.
And, finally, if they determine that the tax bite is too severe, they move their factories to other countries, often to China.
When Biden wasn’t promising that his administration was going to spend all that additional revenue providing us with everything we’d need from the cradle to the grave in exchange for depriving us of our freedoms, he reminded us how, as V.P., he had chased Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell and then ushered him inside. It was a strange boast to make, for, as Bret Baier, pointed out, Joe Biden had opposed the mission. It was probably the one time in eight years that Biden had removed his lips from Obama’s posterior long enough to voice an objection. And, of course, it was the one time that Obama did something right.
In his rebuttal, Tim Scott did himself and the Republicans proud. It helped that because of the Covid restrictions, there was far less pomp and circumstances surrounding the President’s address, so the contrast in venues wasn’t so great. But at least Sen. Scott didn’t appear to be speaking from a closet, so he managed to avoid any of the earlier mishaps by others pressed into rebutting such an address. Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal probably still wake up in a cold sweat, recalling their own misadventures.
But I didn’t intend to dismiss Scott with a left-handed compliment.
He was very effective in relating his own personal story, crediting his mother and his Christian faith for his own success.
Most importantly of all, he made me look good for having recently suggested that the GOP start replacing Mitch McConnell with Scott as the spokesman for the Senate Republicans.
Attorney General Merrick Garland is wasting no time reminding us of Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch as he calls for the Justice Department to begin investigating the nation’s police departments for signs of all that systemic racism we keep hearing about.
That’s bad enough, but if I squint a little bit, I could swear I was looking at Anthony Fauci. Where the heck do they find these pompous pipsqueaks?
How is it that we haven’t heard a word from the black girl whose life was saved when Ohio police officer Nicholas Reardon shot the knife-wielding Ma'Khia Bryant? You would assume that at least Fox would have her on to voice her appreciation to her benefactor, who is currently on suspension for doing his duty.
And how is it that his name has been released, but I am having to trust the rumor that the creep who shot and killed an unarmed woman named Ashli Babbitt on January 6th was a Brazilian immigrant/BLM militant/white-hating member of the Capitol police force named David Bailey?
And how is it that unnamed authorities have declared that his killing of Ms. Babbitt was justified when she was unarmed and was on the other side of a thick Senate chamber door, meaning the officer’s life was no more in danger than my own at the time.
Other lowlights of Biden’s address came when he identified white supremacy as the greatest terrorist threat facing America. I’d agree if he was referring to the triumvirate of Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and himself.
I know he was trying to wring a tear or two out of us when he reported visiting George Floyd’s small daughter, six-year-old Gianna, “a mere tyke” in his words, and stooping to look her in the eye as she said “My daddy changed the world.”
I know it’s not the image he meant to convey, but anyone who knows his history couldn’t help chuckling, knowing that creepy Uncle Joe couldn’t get that close to a tyke without sniffing her hair.
The late novelist, Terry Pratchett, got a laugh out of me when he said “There is a rumor going around that I have found God. I think that is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.”
Mr. Patchett died in 2015, so at least by now he will have had time to find God and perhaps even his keys.
You can email Burt directly at [email protected].
