By Tom Klocek

For the past two years, we have talked about the victims of COVID-19. But we were also being victimized by tyranny in the name of COVID-19. For over 200 years, our nation has survived, thrived, and prospered because, for the most part, we were taught personal responsibility, a sense of national history, and limited government, and we had a free press that also had a sense of responsibility and professionalism to report facts. This allowed us to be informed and make rational decisions based on a fairly firm foundation of information.

When we understood very little about this disease, sent to us by the Chinese without any warning, Americans were willing to accept the need to minimize interactions with others, to self-quarantine, to wear masks, and to avoid social gatherings, even to the point of shutting down one of our most important First Amendment rights — the right to free exercise of religion. We did this from a patriotic standpoint, which included an unwillingness to put our fellow citizens in danger if we could avoid it. We went to great lengths as a people and a nation to try to lessen the impact of this nasty disease.

Now, however, we know a great deal more about the disease. But even with this knowledge, common sense has been thrown out the window. We feared that hospital systems were going to be overwhelmed, so we accepted the efforts to slow the spread and flatten the curve. We deployed military field hospitals and hospital ships to key areas to be ready to provide additional support if needed. Many of those facilities closed up a few weeks later after experiencing little or no usage.

Governors across the land instituted a wide range of measures to try to deal with the situation, from strict lockdowns to little restrictions to recommendations for the more vulnerable to take extra precautions. The data is in and we can compare the relative effectiveness of these actions. We also know more about the disease, how it is spread, who is vulnerable, and how better to treat it. So now it is time to bring common sense back into play.

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” —Matthew 7:15

Unfortunately, the oft used adage Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely is truer now than ever. Many progressive governors (and nations as well) have experienced the heady rush of unprecedented control over their populations and have doubled down on the restrictions they are imposing on their people, in violation of constitutional rights. And the people, who have been poorly educated or not educated at all on the Constitution, have like sheep meekly accepted these draconian measures. The only ones who seem to get away with ignoring the lockdown rules are those who are intent on rioting and destroying the rights and property of others.

Even now, when the CDC has finally acknowledged such commonsense things as natural immunity being more effective than the so-called vaccines and when it has been reaffirmed that masks are useless against COVID, we have many states, localities, and businesses still requiring masking for entry or participation. The TSA has not dropped masks in airports, military facilities still require masks for some functions, and many businesses “encourage” masks. Even many churches have masking rules. The Amtrak websites states, “Amtrak requires all customers and employees wear face masks.” The CDC further acknowledges that perhaps 75% of those who died with COVID listed as the cause of death were actually people who died with COVID rather than because of COVID. The CDC further notes that 75% of those who died had four — not one, two, or three, but FOUR — comorbidities, stating that these were pretty sick people in the first place. Yet we locked down the nation rather than apply sensible protections for these people while the rest of us could go about our lives. Even with these figures, the disease has almost a 99% survival rate, and it’s probably higher since we don’t know the true number of those who contracted it. As I said in a previous essay, I don’t want to make light of those who died, as all human life is precious. But the policies adopted during this “crisis” only prolonged things and prevented serious attempts to combat the disease.

This is what comes of politicizing science and, in particular, healthcare. If there is one lesson we should learn from this, it is that the government has no business trying to run healthcare. The government should not be providing health insurance (look what it has done there — premiums have increased greatly and millions are still uncovered). Nor should the government be dictating what services must or may not be provided. It is not the government’s role to tell a religious-based hospital that it must provide services contrary to its faith (e.g., killing babies in the womb or conducting sex-change operations). Look at the “success” of state-run healthcare in Canada and England — long wait times and often an unavailability of doctors. We have our own lesson of poor service to veterans that demonstrated this loud and clear.

There are many scientists now who have looked at the collection of data and the experiences of many localities, states, and countries with respect to the effectiveness of mitigation efforts as well as the disease itself. They have concluded that these overbearing violations of our constitutional rights are not only ineffective but they may be doing more harm than good. A group experts in the fields of epidemiology and public health have urged the reopening of our society. The CDC has recommended schools be reopened. A group of scientists and doctors in Ireland has studied the data and developed an alternative strategy for dealing with the virus now that it has reached what is called endemic status. Dr. Michael Yeadon, a former vice president and chief scientist at Pfizer (one of the pharmaceutical companies producing a vaccine), has even gone so far as to declare that COVID-19 has reached a stage to where a vaccine may be unnecessary, as we may already have reached herd immunity. He cites the fact that there are many other coronaviruses in the population that are similar enough to COVID-19 as to make those who previously contracted them either immune or less susceptible to COVID-19, thus adding to the herd immunity condition.

Why are we only now seriously looking at various treatments such as ivermectin and various other drug combinations that have been shown to be effective in many cases? Some countries have shown great success with early treatment of these combinations, Nevertheless, the government and hospitals went to great efforts to prevent such treatments from being utilized, instead insisting on imposing an experimental jab that has shown itself to be only partially effective and that has a fairly rapid reduction in effectiveness. Isn’t it funny how many nations are against genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our food and yet rushed to experiment on their populations?

We have already learned of the detrimental effects these lockdowns have had on our children and on their education. Similarly, violent crime has increased drastically. Mental problems have increased as well. All of this is related to the policies put into effect during the COVID crisis. In my estimation, some of these policies are actually what made it a crisis. Look at the efforts of the government and the media to instill and maintain fear in everyone, to the point of people calling out and reporting others (as if this was the Soviet Union) for not wearing those ineffective masks — even outdoors. The obvious political nature of these procedures makes it clear that it was never about “protection” but about control! Why else would strip joints, bars, and abortion clinics be allowed to stay open while churches were forced to close or operate under severe restrictions? And we bought it. Not only the people but leaders of churches and other important organizations as well. To paraphrase George Carlin and Scott Adams, never underestimate the stupidity (or gullibility) of people (or politicians) in large numbers. Or, as a real scientist (Albert Einstein) said, “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” And yet many places are still keeping restrictions in place.

So, what effect does all of this have on those who claim their actions are based on science and still insist on drastic measures? Rather than look at the situation from a commonsense approach, they engage in ad hominem attacks and label those scientists who are proposing a change in strategy as “deniers.” True science continually looks at the facts (not just those that may support someone’s opinion) and tries to identify how that impacts our view of the world. These people who refuse to look at applying a commonsense strategy to our current situation are the true “science deniers.”

We have seen how these elitist claims and efforts to control everyone have been abject failures. Al Gore’s global warming threat and the demise of polar bears has proven false — the polar bear population is increasing. Starvation did not occur in the 1980s. The polar ice cap is still there. The United States has achieved greater per capita carbon reduction than any other nation without participating in the overreaching Paris Climate Accord.

The problem is that the elites know better than the rest of us. Plus, they are drunk with power, especially with all of the lockdown restrictions they have imposed. There has not been a revolution by the people, except maybe for the truckers. A recent article in the National Catholic Register said it very well: “Whenever you hear somebody quote science, and say ‘science’ claims this or ‘science’ claims that, it’s a very unscientific and unprofessional voice speaking.”