There is a significant chunk of the population, the thinking part, that is beginning to see COVID as a convenient Deus Ex Machina for elites seeking to control the rest of us.
In short, the term Deus Ex Machina stems from ancient theater, when supposed Gods were lowered to the stage, or raised, via mechanical devices. The description has been broadened to describe times when unsolvable conflicts or points of tension magically are resolved by the unlikely appearance of characters, devices or actions.
The progressive left was having trouble getting the rest of us to follow blindly their socialist dictates. Then came COVID and even some of the more individualistic types became bleating sheep following orders, no matter how absurd they might have been.
Freedom was relegated to being no more than an outdated concept.
Economies and travel were shut down. Families were ordered not to congregate. Churches were shut. Businesses sat idle, but workers got paid to stay home – an important component of the plan.
And masks had to be worn, no matter the evidence that they did little they were claimed to do. Same with vaccines, which went from purportedly guaranteeing the recipient would not be stricken with COVID, to being maybe if you add a booster shot or two, to OK, you still will get COVID, but the symptoms will not be as bad.
We eagerly await the mea culpa on all the adverse side effects of the vaccine that are cropping up and now are being reported upon by some independent members of the scientific community.
This sort of public blind obedience to leftist agendas has been preached for decades to our school children, with that indoctrination having ramped up since COVID. Coincidence? I think not.
The emboldened left has seized on COVID as a great enabler. You can find videos of Hanoi Jane Fonda doing a television interview in which she proclaimed COVID to be “God’s gift to the left.”
She seemed to be talking about the pandemic awakening people to societal wrongs. It’s hard to tell because Fonda’s sanity ship seems to have sailed.
But she is correct that many in the left do view COVID as something of a gift, not necessarily from God since so many on the left are not the most religious sorts.
If you think this opportunistic use of COVID isn’t working, think again. People have been more than happy to abdicate control of their lives to the government, or just others in general.
The New York Times last week ran some sort of crazy opinion piece from a woman missing her time spent in China when the government told her how to raise her children. Co-parenting with a tyrannical Chinese regime was a good thing in her warped sense of reality.
People unable to display critical reasoning, to make decisions for themselves, is something widely evident on social media.
I do not have a Facebook account, but I log on using a family member’s account to check marketplace for cars. I have bought three there for myself so far.
But the postings are absurd any time a few flakes of snow fall. One group my son belongs to is overrun with requests for road conditions and whether the timid soul should attempt to get from Point A to Point B. Someone just tell me what I should do!
Predictably, there are some who find this somewhat pathetic and post as much. They are in the minority, however.
It can be argued that social media in general is nothing more than a dumbing-down process, distracting the sheep from significant issues and instead producing a bunch of navel-gazing ovines who are much easier to be herded in the preferred direction of the political left.
There are reports of people rebelling against ridiculous mask mandates, just as there is a severe backlash of county sheriffs refusing to enforce unconstitutional gun laws that socialist governors and state legislators have chosen to enact.
But it’s not enough to demonstrate hope that the majority of the population will refuse to be treated like sheep and fleeced accordingly.
Sam Ross Jr's site 