It's time for this to be said, because it's the right thing to do. I've mostly sat back and watched this parade pass by with some amazement and a lot of distress. The primary thing that distresses me is what a collective bunch of whiny little snowflakes we've become regarding this subject. Most of us are products of the Greatest Generation, did we learn nothing from them? What ever happened to critical thinking, do we just fall in line like good little sheeple at the first call of a threat? Go back and look at who and what Americans are and how we react and persevere in the face of a threat.
In the early 20th century we fought and won a world war while at the same time facing the Spanish Flu pandemic which was a vastly more lethal killer than this current virus - but we didn't even consider shutting down our economy. We rebuilt and smacked right into the stock market crash of 1929, the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, but as Americans we continued on and rebuilt. Then, a two front world war and we fought our way through to win and rebuild our economy and the American lifestyle even greater than before. Then the cold war and threat of a nuclear war. The Korean conflict had less impact on us, we continued on. Next Viet Nam and the unrest of the 60's, but we always looked to the horizon without fear and trepidation because we knew we were winners. We eventually faced down the enemy in the cold war and celebrated, moving on to a better tomorrow, secure in the knowledge we are Americans and we would win - we've faced and won each of the battles of circumstance that have come our way.
It's not the American way to crawl under a desk in the fetal position when confronted with something shocking and potentially scary, it never has been - at least until now when we've allowed ourselves to be panicked into crawling under the desk by bogus numbers generated by computer models, by inflated unsupported numbers coming out of testing labs and other suspect sources, not the least in the main stream media. When did we become the millennial snowflake generation cowering in fear over an imagined adversary? And, as for this new tactic of mask shaming me for not wearing one, you're wasting your time - it goes nowhere with me. If it's so dangerous to be around people with no masks, then you should stay home, no one forced you to come near me, you've placed yourself in harms way, no one but you is to blame. I certainly don't run around hugging and kissing people. For the rest of us, we have a life to live and things to accomplish that sitting inside a bubble watching netflix won't get done.
Look around, businesses and lives are being destroyed by this lemmings stampede to nowhere. Some small businesses are the life's work and dream of people and now they're gone, and for the imaginary safety of some cloth masks and anti-social distancing? What is the price of this mythological safety we're all being forced to dance to - certainly our freedom as we once knew it is already gone. Each life is precious, but people die every day from a thousand other causes. Now we're told that even if you show up mangled beyond recognition from a car accident but showing positive for the virus it's a covid death and for that we've sacrificed our freedom for some imagined safety?
I'm seventy seven with asthma and I have a tactical belt with holster normally used for a small pistol which now contains my compulsory compassion mask and my emergency inhaler. I strap them on just before entering a business because I can't wear the mask for very long before I notice the reduced oxygen intake and the re-breathed carbon dioxide caused by the mask may force me to use the inhaler, imagine trying to explain that to some mask nazi at the grocery store. Besides losing my sense of humor, I've lost my dignity and my sense of community. And, mostly I've lost my faith in my generation who should know better than to be cowed by this sham. I have little faith in the millennial generation to carry on the traditions of America as laid out by the Constitution. I've believed we, the older generation, should continue on a logical course praying the next generation after the snowflakes will be up to the task and that America will survive until then. As Ronald Reagan said "freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction" - are we at that tipping point, driven by something as banal as a virus?
