“This is not a natural disaster, but a manmade one” was the headline of a piece by Lionel Shriver at Spectator USA. The piece rightly pointed out that the Wuhan virus did not close businesses and put millions out of work, politicians and the “expert” class did. Not only does blame rest with them, they got away with it without providing much empirical scientific evidence to justify extraordinary actions.
The sentences most deserving attention in the story are these:
“Politics, as opposed to science, does not reward the correction of mistakes, given that correcting a mistake also entails admitting to having made one. Worse, the bigger the mistake, the greater the political urgency of defending it at all costs.”
Why, after 14 to 21 days, when all the “expert” predictions of a tidal wave of cases overwhelming our hospitals proved not only false but not even numerical close to reality, did governors, local mayors, and county judges not immediately rescind their economically crippling and civil liberties subverting orders?
Because, as Shriver points out: “Politics, as opposed to science, does not reward the correction of mistakes, given that correcting a mistake also entails admitting to having made one. Worse, the bigger the mistake, the greater the political urgency of defending it at all costs.”
So despite nothing being shut down when in 2018 1.5 million people died of tuberculosis, which has developed antibiotic resistance; up to 650,000 perish annually from flu; as many as 160,000 die from typhoid fever, and; another 620,000 die from malaria, we will see a stringing out of restrictions on liberty and fear-inspiring rules, like wearing masks useless against viral outbreaks, all to because most politicians and “experts” who got it all wrong cannot simply admit to their error.
Two things we right leaning folks need to be doing:
1. Each of us must do whatever is within our power to get the economy recovering. Such as: Be positive. Take some business risks. Spend some money at small businesses.
2. Convince the over-lords that we are not going to go along with another mistake like this one.