RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/12/04/is-america-in-a-civil-disobedience-mood/

Governors, mayors, and county officials are again shutting down the activities and movements of an ostensibly free people, but this time the resistance looks like it will be more stubborn. No one is yet “up in arms.” But much of America has clearly had enough of the petty tyrants making rules for others.

Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Wednesday, with the iciness of a Versailles royal, that “it’s time to cancel everything.” Outdoor dining is now verboten in Los Angeles County, even though the restriction is “senseless.” (At least a clear-thinking judge has told the county that it must present scientific evidence that outdoor dining increases the risk of spreading the coronavirus if it’s to ban it.)

From her privileged and luxury bubble in Lansing, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, another Democrat, is threatening to issue new stay-at-home instructions. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the target of a recall effort, has delivered a similar warning. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose pandemic response has arguably been the worst in the country if not the world, said he might again put out another statewide “pause” order. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, the third Democratic governor referenced in this paragraph, is saying that the malign presence (our words) of a shutdown “has to stay on the table.”

The Democratic governors of Oregon and New Mexico have also dropped heavy-handed restrictions on their states. And on it goes in the land that our grade school teachers told us was free.

But this time, unlike during the first lockdowns, which were to last for 15 days so we could flatten the curve of positive tests, many are not taking the undeserved punishment from their “betters” without a fight. Everyday Americans weary of being bullied from on high have been inspired by one-time Stanford University Medical Center neuroradiology chief and former White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Scott Atlas, who suggested Michiganders “rise up” – nonviolently – against Whitmer’s petty tyranny:

The owner of Eat At Joe’s in Redondo Beach, California, has been defying the Los Angeles County outdoor dining ban. “I’m not a person that easily wants to fight the system or anything,” Alex Jordan said. “I just, I hit my wall.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/the-vaccine-storys-heroes-do-not-fit-the-liberal-narrative/

When it came to solving the crisis, progressive policies took a back seat to the institutions and forces that actually got the job done.

A ssuming that the COVID-19 vaccines work, their development will be the biggest, most high-profile public-health success story since the polio vaccine in the 1950s. A weary world has waited many trying months for this. Yet in the media’s coverage, there are a lot of mixed messages about how this happened — because the story is not one that fits comfortably with liberal narratives. Consider the big, splashy New York Times story by six reporters (Sharon LaFraniere, Katie Thomas, Noah Weiland, David Gelles, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, and Denise Grady) on the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, and the Stat story by Damian Garde and Jonathan Saltzman on the technology behind them. When you dig into the details, the heroes are largely (1) big American pharmaceutical corporations, (2) the Trump administration, and (3) the U.S. military. The lessons to be drawn support the conservative view of government, business, and their proper roles and relationships.

The tension is obvious early in the Times story, when it announces its intended theme: “In an era of polarized politics, science was able to break down barriers between government, countries and industry to produce one of the few pieces of good news in a year of suffering and division.” This is not supported by the facts. “Science” did not produce a vaccine, in the sense of a Jonas Salk figure having a “eureka!” moment in a laboratory some time in 2020. The Times does not bother introducing us to any of the individual researchers who actually developed the vaccine. Nor does it illustrate the breaking of barriers between countries, except by big business. The facts are more stubborn.

In fact, as the Stat story illustrates, the core concept of making messenger RNA (or mRNA) synthetically and using it to produce vaccines has been kicking around for three decades, and the crucial breakthrough came in 2005. While there were still some daunting scientific hurdles to overcome, the broader problem facing synthetic mRNA was its risky, experimental nature; only a change in the economics and available resources would make it economically viable to invest in scaling up a major trial of an mRNA-based vaccine to see if it would work.

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Those who are hoping that a Biden Administration will rid of us the division and prejudice that have characterized the last four years, and return us to some halcyon period, are mistaken. Mainstream media will no longer be in attack mode nor will late-night television hosts, so the temperature may appear to abate. But the causes for the dysfunction we have felt do not lie with Mr. Trump but are a consequence of attempts to alter the culture that has made us a success.
The word culture stems from the Latin “colere,” to cultivate, nurture and grow. It encompasses many aspects of our lives, like music, art and literature, as well as ethnicities, religion and race. But when I write of culture, I refer to family, traditions like church and patriotism, and qualities like honor, manners, respect, humility, tolerance – universal values, acquired over time and required for civil behavior. They are expressed in axioms like the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments and turning the other cheek.

The United States has faults, but its good qualities outshine its bad. As a nation of courageous and independent individuals, we are unafraid to speak of past and present evils, like slavery and bigotry. We should, as well, be as quick to acknowledge our accomplishments: A Constitutional government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” comprised of laws, not men; our system of free-market capitalism, which has done more to eradicate poverty than any system of state redistribution; educational opportunities not available to most of the world – two thirds of Americans between the ages of 18 and 22 are in college. To believe that race is systemic is to be seduced by accusations of white guilt and to disbelieve facts; a Pew Research survey found that 91% of Americans either shrug off or applaud interracial marriage. We are the most desired nation for migrants, with 21% naming the U.S., in a study done by the World Economic Forum in 2017. (Germany was second with six percent.)

As a nation, we are blessed with natural resources and favorable climate, but they alone do not account for our success. The crucible has been a culture that valued aspiration, risk-taking, hard work and self-reliance. It was a culture, based on a Judeo-Christian heritage, enmeshed in the traditional family and traditional values. Our universities were designed to allow the intellectually gifted to expand their minds, explore and debate ideas, to learn the “hows” and “whys” of thinking, not what to think. Students were challenged, not coddled. The concept of “safe places,” or the idea that the classroom was a place to claim victimhood and air grievances were alien to those who saw their role as imparting knowledge, to form better citizens, to help the Country grow and prosper.