Nazis on trial at Nuremberg after World War II often fell back on the “just following orders” rationalization, which has come to be called the Nuremberg defense in their honor, or dishonor as it were.
I mention this because I’ve had it up to here (imagine me holding my left hand about a foot or so above my head) with the quacks who have hamstrung our economy and society with draconian measures to combat COVID-19, all the time justifying it by saying they were “just following the science.”
First off, “science” is a dynamic pursuit that is rife with failed assumptions as well as those eventually proven correct. To take an early read on a situation and pronounce it settled science is akin to proclaiming the winner of a baseball game in the first inning.
At the very least the “just following science” evangelists ought to be willing to admit when they are proven to have been flat-out wrong; to have over-reacted and caused greater harm with their remedies than the disease itself would have produced.
Check out the surges in domestic assaults, suicides, drug overdoses and other categories that have occurred alongside of virus lockdowns.
My motivation for this screed comes from an acquaintance who went to the local hospital’s emergency room this week. He’d been feeling ill, ordered one of those home test kits and came up positive for COVID-19, putting himself in self-quarantine after the positive reading.
But, when his symptoms worsened after several days, he thought discretion was the better part of valor and he headed to the hospital. During his stay at the ER he was shuttled into treatment areas and back into the general waiting room numerous times.
He had arrived at the hospital wearing a mask and never was given a new example. And, as far as he was able to determine, he never was tested for the virus by the hospital. Instead, it seemed the people there were willing to accept the test he’d gotten online from WalMart.
And I ask, what happened to the science?
We were preached at incessantly through the early pandemic panic months that we should wear masks, but change them at least daily. More recently we’ve been told if wearing one mask is good, then having two, three or more swaddling your face simultaneously is even better.
We also were told that, once infected, we should quarantine ourselves and avoid common areas or close contact.
Hell, even the uninfected have been pummeled with warnings to employ social distancing, thus empowering a new class of petty dictators manning cash registers, fast-food counters or any other customer service interface.
We were lectured incessantly about personal hygiene, and having concern for the health of others.
To question any of this, or other drastic mandates, was to be branded a denier of science.
In view of all that, I’m struggling to understand how it’s a good thing to be sending a COVID-19 positive patient into a waiting area – repeatedly – to mingle with other customers (I guess I mean patients, but customers is more apt since this particular ER formerly and possibly presently, has a billing goal daily just like a salesman’s quota).
But, wait, today the New York Times, newly emboldened to be a teller of unpleasant truths because its favored regime team holds the nation’s executive office, came out with a story critiquing the Centers for Disease Control for disseminating the assertion that “less than 10 percent” of COVID-19 transmission occurs outdoors.
The newspaper, whose slogan through the years has gone from “All the news that’s fit to print,” to “All the news that fits our agenda we print,” noted the actual number of outdoor transmissions likely is less than one percent. So, while less than 10 percent technically is accurate, it’s sloppy statistical science, likely designed to scare the sheep among us.
Let’s face it, less than 10 percent sounds a whole lot worse than less than one percent.
The Times went so far as to assert there is not a single documented case worldwide of transmission of COVID-19 from casual outdoor contact such as walking past an individual or eating at a nearby table.
Using less than 10 percent where less than 1 percent is accurate sure sounds more like propaganda than science to me.
Surprisingly, the New York Times agrees.
More media supporters of those using this virus outbreak to seize control of our daily lives would do well to think twice before accepting half-baked presentations as settled science and pontificating to the masses based on the pseudo-science.
The public seems to be coming around to my way of thinking, too. Enough is enough with the inaccurate and hypocritical virtue signaling that is part and parcel of “just following the science.”
Sam Ross Jr's site 