Opinion

HART: There Are Two Important Lessons To Be Learned From This Pandemic

REUTERS/Tom Brenner

Ron Hart Contributor
Font Size:

Lesson One: Do not trust the government. Rely on yourself.

The $2 trillion-plus COVID-19 “stimulus” bill Congress passed became like an Easter egg hunt for Americans, who are just trying to find all the goodies the Democrats hid for themselves in it. And their nominee, Joe Biden (a man who could hide his own Easter eggs), continues to create hostage videos from his basement.

Just weeks ago, government and quasi-government (college professors) models predicted that COVID-19 would kill 2.2 million Americans. The CDC tried to control — and thus botched — the COVID-19 testing process. “Experts” first said face masks do not work and then decided a few days later that they do. This shows us that no one really knows.

For the government to use a “one-size-fits-all” approach to this, applying the same standards to hotbed New York City as it does to Maury County, TN makes no sense. It will be an interesting study that no one will report on once it’s over, examining how states that did not impose draconian measures fared versus those that did.

Some of the arbitrary ways various forms of government use to impose their will should warn us as to what socialism would look like. It is essentially a way for government to inflict its will on those it wants to hurt while rewarding others. You can almost sense the giddy satisfaction of government officials as they make us do what they want. I hope they don’t get any ideas.

Now we are all equally and awkwardly confined to our homes, often by threat of arrest, while our economy, which feeds a nation and funds a bloated federal government, atrophies. Government workers do not care; they get paid no matter what, but those of us who make a living in the real world do not necessarily get paid. The incalculable cost of the financial and emotional stress from it all, which I still maintain was overblown by unaccountable politicians and “experts,” will be worse than the pandemic. They can be and have been outrageously wrong with “models,” yet they pay no price. Imagine the flaws in the “climate change” models.

The way the left awkwardly stumbles to blame Trump for everything is funny to watch. Even with 20/20 hindsight, they cannot come up with any theories about what they would have done differently. It’s not a good look. All politicians who do this test negative for leadership.

Remember, we are the people who get up every day and go to work to create the $22 trillion economy the government leeches off of. Governments need us much more than we need them. At some point we need to rebel, perhaps by Independence Day, July Fourth.

Lesson Two: Do not trust mainstream media.

The sparring sessions during Trump’s coronavirus task force press conferences tell you all you need to know about the lamestream media. They are showboating opportunities for “journalists” to gain liberal media street cred by contorting facts in order to make Trump look bad. The leftist narrative is that Trump does not understand science. This is from the same liberals who believe that 17-year-old Greta Thunberg is the expert on climate change.

CNN stopped covering Trump’s coronavirus press conferences, afraid it was giving him too much good exposure. Don’t get me wrong, CNN would like to cover Trump — with a My Pillow until he cannot breathe.

The media mawkishly report on COVID-19 and picture every hospital as people lying around dying like the trainyard scene in “Gone with the Wind.” I personally know of no one who has contracted COVID-19 and certainly no one who has died from it. Pretty much anyone who has died of anything in the last two months has been coded Coronavirus.

I do know that hospitals will go broke overreacting to this pandemic and not making money doing other surgeries — yet another cure being more damaging than disease. Just to be real, even if we lose 50,000 already older and pretty sick Americans from the virus, remember that there are almost 330 million of us. That is .00015 of us, or .015 of one percent. That is not good, but cratering the economy affects 100% of us.

Lastly, did you know Covid-19 is sexist? The media are now fixated on saying that the virus goes after race and gender disproportionately, afflicting men at a much higher rate than women. It looks like Bruce Jenner made the right move at the right time.

A libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author, Ron’s a frequent commentator on TV and radio. He can be contacted at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.