"The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over."
-- Hunter S Thompson, Hell's Angels
In March 2020, the United State went insane by shutting down its economy, shuttering businesses and telling all nonessential workers to stay at home in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19. It failed worse than a reboot of Ghostbusters. This month will mark the three-year anniversary of that event, one that I still see and feel by people wearing masks or catching Covid following exposure to the virus.
Recently, the Twitter files identified major players who coerced and manipulated data to control our lives. Their authoritarian control reached everything from restaurants and gyms to schools and sporting events. I am amazed at how easily governments coordinated their efforts to change our lives. Not just here in the United States, but everywhere -- Canada, Europe, Russia and Asia. As a result, I'm suspicious of almost everything Washington D.C. does, yet even my suspicious nature was fooled by the daily death totals and case numbers that increased incrementally during the first few weeks of the pandemic.
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| iStock photo |
So the damage was done, and in many sad ways, we're not coming back from it. Grandparents and parents died, jobs were destroyed, and constitutionally guaranteed rights were lost.
Whether it's just therapeutic or something more aligned to making sure we never let it happen again, I wanted to take a look at some of the dumber things we did, which at the time, seemed reasonable considering the "risk" we were being told existed.
We all should have known better. We should have tuned out the COVID "experts" from day one and instead trusted our own observations and common sense.
"The End of the World as We Knew It" began for Liz and I on a flight back from California.
For the first time, people were wearing masks on the plane, even though they weren't mandated. We were sitting behind a young family, who's baby was not feeling good. So much so that the baby threw up in the seat, and on mom who suffered through the embarrassment of trying to quiet the baby and having to clean it up. My point to mentioning the incident is all I could think about was COVID. Was this an early stage, and having been exposed were we the next to fall sick? It was still early in the pandemic, and I hadn't been paying attention to the news. In fact, the week leading up to the shutdown was spent in Malibu on the beach with one of our international students who had moved west to finish her college degree. So -- like most of California's progressive population -- we were clueless about what was happening in the world.
I'm serious, (ok, Sleepy Joe) look at how screwed up California is three years later.
The week following our vacation saw businesses shut down, and sports were no exception. A planned trip to Milwaukee to watch the Buck and Golden State was cancelled when the NBA shut down. March Madness was just beginning, and I remember a game being cancelled at half time and the audience sent home. My friends and I are quick to point out the computer projections that had the Wisconsin Badgers winning the entire tournament that year. Unfortunately, no games were played, and we are left to wonder what could have happened. ESPN, which relies on live sports to fill their programming, was left with talking heads filling hours and hours with mind-numbing analysis.
I remember the day my office staff gathered around the reception area to discuss Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers' order to shut down. It had been coming for days, as cruise ships and arriving travelers were being quarantined for weeks. Leading up to the decision, people had been asked to wear masks when in public. In fact, being the stubborn bastard I can be, I walked through our Festival grocery store without a mask and felt the eyes of others looking on in fear. I follow rules -- contrary to what my wife may say -- but when signs on the business door said "masks recommended" I take them at their word. Recommended is not required. their recommendation.
But getting back to Evers' shutdown order. Insurance was deemed an "essential business," which enabled our office to stay open, but with drastically different rules. Three-quarters of our staff wanted to work from home (strangely they were the employees who either had young children at home or who stood around all day talking about trivia, television's The Office and how much they hated Trump), whereas the boss thought we should have some kind of presence in the office to answer phones and handle claims. Even though the world shut down, weather, fire, wind and accidents continued unabated.
Those were long days, and I remember driving to work and not seeing a single car on the road. We were available to answer the phones, but most of the time it involved our reactions to COVID. We were living in a strange time and there was no shortage of opinions. Everyone of those conversations ended with "Stay safe!"
It was decided that I should get the mail everyday (our post office still flies the banner reading "Heroes Work Here!"). Apparently, I am a hero too, and never knew it. Outside of work, the days were spent watching television and adjusting to life inside your home or apartment.
To separate weekdays from weekends, Liz and I would drive somewhere in the car to breakup up the monotony of our lives. One weekend we drove up to Alma, Wisconsin and stopped at Buena Vista Park overlooking the Mississippi River. It is the largest natural balcony overlooking the river, where on a normal day you could watch barges traveling up and down the river. This day, there were no barges, but there was another warm body (as opposed to the walking dead you feared walking out of the sparse shadows of nearby trees) in the park who wandered up to his car and drove off as soon as we arrived.
Believe it or not, a statewide radio station would play Badger Jump Around (played at Badger football games at the beginning of the 4th quarter) at 3:00 PM on Saturdays and asked people from around the state to "jump around wherever you are." We were more than happy to comply with fellow non-vaxers -- on our pontoon boat and in the middle of the river.
With so few people driving, gas prices dropped significantly. A quick drive across the river to a Winona "essential" gas station would provide cheap gas at only 99 cents a gallon.
Not being considered an essential business was never fully explained to us. Like so many things the CDC told us, they were completely random choices that led to direct assaults on businesses and families.
Many small operators went out of business because they were not on the cherished E list. Businesses like bars, exercise gyms and hotels. But supermarkets, pharmacies and banks were essential. Depending on where you were located -- even a few blocks -- sometimes dictated if you could be open or not. It was insane! And restaurants were given an exception as long as it was only take out. I remember buying take out only because we wanted to support our favorite places to eat, and we didn't want them to fail.
Everyone with half a brain knows if COVID was going to kill you in your favorite restaurant, it was going to kill you in Walmart.
We all thought the shutdowns were temporary, but after Easter came and went with no changes, I began to doubt what we were being told. I've never been a fan of our government agencies (beginning with an internship with the DNR in Madison, where the amount of time wasted talking about problems, but doing nothing to solve them convinced me to never work for its bureaucracy again). So when reality set in and people dealt with this new normal, our lives -- more specifically the way we were allowed to lead our lives -- changed into something so strange that I can't believe it, even now.
Masks, safe distances and remote learning were as common as mud on a pig. They were simple in design, but influential in attacking the nuclear family, religion and social interaction. All of these events involved people being arrested and fined if they did not follow the rules -- but rules that were based on what?.
. Wedding postponements robbed newlyweds of one of the most enjoyable events of their lives
. Hollywood and Broadway went dark (and I don't mean Black History month)
. ZOOM meetings spread like the virus (later most of us would prefer COVID over another ZOOM meeting)
. Children were prevented from seeing elderly parents and grandparents (many of the elderly died in nursing homes and hospitals, alone)
. Schools chose remote learning over in-class instruction (and we have lost a generation to poor learning)
. People wore plastic bottles, oranges, and underwear on their face when they didn't have a mask
. People were ruthlessly fired from jobs because they were not vaccinated. Many are still not allowed to return, despite worker shortages in the medical, airline and military fields.
. Outdoor activities were banned (a single person made the news when he was arrested on a California beach)
. Round dots, spaced 6 feet apart, magically appeared in grocery stores and government offices
. Much to the dismay of hearing-impaired people, grocery stories installed protective plastic shields at checkouts to separate cashiers and shoppers
. Hospitals were furloughing nurses and parking lots were empty because they locked their doors to elective surgeries and routine checkups.
. Viterbo required masks to be worn during noon ball. Some of us refused for over a year
. People were so desperate to get their hair cut, they called their stylist and got it cut in their garage.
. China's "zero COVID" policies resulted in apartment doors being welded shut for weeks or months
. Public bathrooms were closed, so people relieved themselves outside
. The popularity of drive-by birthdays and anniversaries
. Christmas and Thanksgiving were celebrated without family (unless you were liberal and special)
. The news started every day with COVID data reports on deaths, hospitalizations and infections (only later did we confirm most of these deaths were with COVID not because of it). Daily updates came from Washington, featuring President Trump and his administration.
. We developed a vaccine that prevented nothing; the "vaccines" now requires 4 different boosters.
. Long lines of people in cars, waiting to have a Q-tip jammed up their nose
. Toilet paper and hand sanitizer shortages caused grocery stores to ration items, and distilleries to forsake the smooth burn of liquor sliding down our throats, to the slippery feel of hand sanitizer on our hands.
. Lockdowns resulted in worldwide shortages of computer chips needed to make just about everything
. Churches were closed, so online services were held. Communion was given in parking lots with your own wine.
. Voting laws were changed to allow COVID-free voting (and election fraud)
Three years later, have we learned anything from March 2020?
Based on the trouble I had researching some of the information used in this blog, I would say no. Search GOOGLE for anything to do with COVID lockdowns, and you will get a long list of articles about COVID prevention and one-sided stories from the New York Times, CNN and Washington Times warning you of the dangers of the virus and the misinformation coming from FOX News. It's as though everything we need to know about COVID and its related shutdowns doesn't exist.
Let's face it, the truth about COVID is being deep sixed.
As a society, we still haven't accepted the errors of our ways. The left's movement to divide our country has never been more evident. Too many of us still forsake common sense and favor cruelty against our neighbors in the interest of safety. It's obviously bad to lock people in their homes or to force people to mask and take risky vaccines because you don't want to breathe the same air as them. Young people -- our most "enlightened and woke" -- are simply not capable of ignoring their "news" feeds and consistently show they have a hard time discerning the truth.
And finally, not one person responsible for the madness of 2020 has taken responsibility for their actions. As a Christian, I think forgiveness is important to a good life, but it has to come with repentance, otherwise the same people will just screw us over again.
Don't hold your breath for Fauci, Biden, Trudeau, the CDC or the WHO to admit their actions had little to do with our safety, but an attempt at authoritarian control. Legacy media and academia also failed us and little has changed in their behavior. Calls for self-absolution by those who got it wrong, and accusations against us that got it right indicate they haven't changed at all. Until they are shamed and punished for their actions, there will be no recovery from these dark days.
Perhaps it's still too soon -- to close to the heart, too painful to admit, or still too political. But as a worldwide society, we must stop being afraid of every airborne illness and hold some of those responsible for their complicit corruption. Take a stand, speak it loudly and let people know it.
The future of our economic and social well-being demands it.
