An Intro by John R. Houk
Original post by Justin O. Smith
© March 13, 2020
Typically I make it a point to check up on statistics of
submissions to my blogs. The information relating to the Coronavirus/COVID-19
are so fluid in change and unpredictability at this point, I am choosing not to
check up on typically reliable Justin Smith.
I had a thought come to me as I read Justin’s simultaneous
criticism of President Trump’s Big Government solutions and disdain for Dem/MSM
hypocrisy for blaming Trump when past Dem pandemic/epidemic solutions fell far
short.
What was that thought?
The jury will be out for some time on the right or wrong of
my thought but here it is: President Donald Trump is not a Conservative. ALSO
neither is Trump a Leftie/Liberal. Undoubtedly due to the nature of Trump’s
billion dollar business, he has some globalist tendencies, but I don’t think he
is a Globalist.
My emerging sense is Donald Trump is an American in the mold
American history would have described as a statesman more than a patriot. As a
statesman he makes choices he feels are good for America. That is where the
jury is out. Typical Conservatives will always hate solutions that involves the
government and the government-spending indulgence. A typical Leftist desires
government solutions to transform society into a perceived society of what
humanity should look like (even if that means intruding on individual
Liberty). In the Conservative/Leftist conflict, Trump gravitates toward
Conservatism but that hardly makes him dedicated to Conservative ideals.
In my opinion that puts Trump in the position of distrust from
both dedicated Conservatives and Left-Wing (actually Marxist) ideologues.
President Trump is going to step on everyone’s toes for what he believes is
good for America. For my part, I am more pleased than displeased with Trump
accomplishments. Yet look for more displeasure from Conservatives if Trump’s
government solutions fail more than succeed. Unfortunately the American Left is
soooo infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome, only utter Trump failure will
make the Left pleased … EVEN IF THAT FAILURE IS A RUINED AMERICA.
Below is Justin Smith questioning President government path
for a Coronavirus hampered economy yet rooting for Trump election victories
because the alternative is Dem Party Marxism.
JRH 3/13/20
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BLOG EDITOR (In Fascistbook
jail since 1/20/20): I’ve apparently been placed in restricted Facebook
Jail! The restriction was relegated after criticizing Democrats for supporting
abortion in one post and criticizing Virginia Dems for gun-grabbing legislation
and levying protester restrictions. Rather than capitulate to Facebook
censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the
Leftist censors ban me completely. Conservatives are a huge portion of
Facebook. If more or all Conservatives are banned, it will affect
the Facebook advertising revenue paradigm. SO FIGHT CENSORSHIP BY SHARE – SHARE
– SHARE!!! Facebook notified me in pop-up on 1/20/20: “You're
temporarily restricted from joining and posting to groups that you do not
manage until April 18 at 7:04 PM.”
***********************
The Great American Panic of 2020
Exploiting COVID-19 Fears - Don't Allow America to Be
Exploited By Fear
By Justin O. Smith
Sent 3/13/2020
2:46 AM
Deep in the throes of the Great American Panic of 2020,
someone please dip me deep in Shinola and call me a greased pig, if I should
ever fall into the miserable weepy, hysteria that is not only coming from the
media, but now from the President's office, and too many corners of the general
public. It's almost as if President Trump feels compelled to address the
COVID-19 like a Democrat, as he capitulated, after stating the virus wasn't
that bad, and this only adds to the panic, a panic that has been facilitated
and manufactured by the media and President Trump's political enemies, who
would love nothing better than to see the U.S. economy crash and end Trump's
presidency, while also opening one more door for limiting individual liberty in
America.
In a normal flu season, an average of 36,000 Americans die
of the flu, but according to the CDC, ninety percent of those are over the age
of sixty-five, and out of 35.5 million cases for the flu season of 2018 to
2019, there were 34,000 deaths. One should recall that between 2009 and 2010,
some 17,000 Americans died from Swine Flu, and America wasn't throwing a
trillion dollars at it, in the manner President Trump now proposes doing with
COVID-19, very similar to any other Democrat, as he wants to temporarily
suspend the payroll tax without cutting any spending.
If President Trump wants to throw government money after a
problem, he should focus on getting pharmaceutical manufacturing centers up and
running here in America, so we are not dependent on China for life-saving
medicines. For that matter, there are numerous critical components currently
manufactured in China that we need, but they are no longer manufactured here (an
article for another day).
Trump's proposed tax break would essentially disburse a
trillion dollars in stimulus, in order to stop an economic crisis in the
making, if it lasts through the end of the year. It would push the already high
federal budget deficit to unprecedented levels, close to $2 trillion, and it
would not really help anyone, nor would it address the actual underlying
problems with the economy or any health issues. Essentially, it will fail to be
of any positive benefit to the American people, and only succeed in placing
more burden on the U.S. taxpayers on down the road.
More than anything else, Trump's proposal appears to be a
not so veiled attempt to buy Wall Street's good graces and the election along
with it, by providing more stimulus money to the stimulus that has been ongoing
since October, as his administration would basically pick more winners and
losers in the face of an economy that was falling short prior to this COVID-19
outbreak. He knows if his "great economy" falls, so too might his
presidency, which suggests he sells his other so-called
"accomplishments" short, too.
I'm no big supporter of President Trump, simply over issues
tied to our national sovereignty and the Bill of Rights, but still, I don't
want to see him fail and place the country outright in the hands of socialists,
communists and Islamofascists. I simply wish he would trust that true conservative
ideas would do even better than some of his current flawed policy positions and
his lurch more leftwards.
COVID-19 now has a death rate that is trending around
approximately one percent of all infected, with the latest CDC confirmed death
count in America at 36, as of this writing (8:15 P.M. 3-12-2020), and
approximately 1215 known cases, according to Lara Logan at Fox News. But good
news from South Korea exhibits only ten percent of cases ever require any
hospitalization, with less than one percent of their 7300 cases dying from the
virus.
By no means do I suggest that there aren't also plenty of
good, rational reasons to be concerned. As of this writing, 134,488 people have
contracted COVID-19 worldwide and 4,970 of them have died. And of course, we
haven't yet reached the peak of this virus in America yet, which means we have
a bit of a ways to go, before we see the light at the end of the tunnel; but, rest
assured, the light is there and not too far into the near future, if only
people will remain calm and keep with as normal a daily routine as possible.
Even here in Murfreesboro, TN, unbelievably, I see people
seemingly alarmed, although there are not any cases here, at the moment. Just
the other day, I saw a pretty large gal wearing her COVID mask, while she
rolled down the candy aisle stocking up on Hershey Bars, Milky Ways and Reese's
Peanut Butter Cups. But the signs are everywhere, big and small, as one sees
many Uber drivers now wearing the same surgical masks.
More people die of cancer in America each year than will die
from COVID-19, and according to the journal Science News [March 6th], only one
in 500 under the age of 40 might die from this new coronavirus. So why all the
panic over this virus?
Nobody wants to die before their time, but statistically
speaking, a person is more likely to be killed in a car crash or murdered in
America, than die from contracting COVID-19. People need to stop acting as
though the world is coming to an end and that just because the World Health
Organization is calling it a "pandemic" it must be death sentence to
anyone coming in contact with it.
This panic is now moving President Trump to seek a Big
Government solution for a problem that will only grow government, because he
and his advisors fear the reaction that would result, if he simply urged calm,
good hygiene practices and carrying on one's everyday normal life. Fear has
kept Trump from simply urging business as usual in the nation, while urging
people to take a minimum of caution, seek testing if one thinks one has been
exposed and seek treatment if one contracts it. And instead, he has flung
the door wide open to more draconian measures and an eventual complete shutdown
of the nation, without any real good reason.
Now, we are also seeing the Republican Party taking
advantage of this crisis to make themselves appear as the people's saviors, as
numerous Republicans – (Republicans In Name Only – RINOs) -- and the Trump
administration too have seemingly found a new found love for government run
healthcare with the onset of this "crisis". On March 2nd, 2020,
Robert Kadlec, HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, suggested
that part of the efforts aimed at COVID-19 should treat virus patients like
disaster victims who will be eligible for federal funds.
No amount of government money thrown at this
"crisis" non-crisis can make people engage in more commerce and spend
more money, if the same government benefactor is stoking fears over this
COVID-19 virus. Only an assured message expressing the need for calm and
carrying on with our daily routines as usual may stop the continued slide of
our economy and regain some semblance of normalcy, in our society, as we all
remain watchful and yet not so fearful that we can't work or feel as if we must
hide behind closed doors, in self-imposed quarantines.
In response to Kadlec's proposal on March 10th,
Representative Ted Yoho (R-Florida) stated: "You can look at it as
socialized medicine. But in the face of an outbreak, a pandemic, what's your
options?"
Such an ignorant statement coming from an elected official
is part of the problem. Men such as Yoho stoke the sort of fear that adds to
the panic and makes matters worse, as people have begun hoarding face masks,
food and even toilet paper. Similarly, in many America towns, St Patrick Day
parades are being cancelled, along with school closures and basketball game
cancellations, all of which add to the fear and in reality give only a little
more protection against the virus than simply following good hygiene will
provide. And all of this is a disproportionate and self-destructive response to
what can only be described as a fairly low level threat.
However, Democrats and Republicans alike, the petty tyrants
lurking among both parties, learned a great lesson in 2008, from Rahm Emanuel,
who stated: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I
mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do
before."
Despite the high confidence that the majority of people will
never get the virus and the known truth that the largest percentage, the vast
majority, of people contracting COVID-19 will survive, too many people and
governments across the globe are reacting in extreme fashion.
And now, America is seeing the National Guard being
activated on March 7th in New York to respond to the outbreak, even though
Governor Cuomo presents it as an innocuous and benevolent act for delivering
aid, medicine and food as well as cleansing and disinfecting areas affected. He
has essentially set up a quarantined area with a radius of one mile from the synagogue
at its epicenter, as three schools were also closed down in New Rochelle, and
the National Guard was tasked with constructing "Containment
centers". But, people's movements haven't been restricted, yet.
It's one thing for our government to take extraordinary
measures, in the face of violent situations, as our nation has witnessed in
Boston after the Islamist terror bombing, when law enforcement carried out a
military style search for the terrorists; in Baltimore when riots resulted in a
military lock down of the city, as 1500 National Guardsmen patrolled the
streets and residents were placed under a ten o'clock curfew. And it's quite
another thing for the government to take a heavy hand in a matter quite easily
handled between any individual and their doctor and a hospital staff, since
very nearly any person in America, of average intelligence has sense enough to
seek help and treatment from a doctor, if they fall ill; and with this current
crisis, one can be most certain that everyone is on alert and staying vigilant
from concern for themselves and their families.
The government's overreaction to this crisis should worry
everyone, since many intrusive laws are already on the books, just waiting to
be invoked by overzealous public health officials; these laws grant nearly
unlimited power to quarantine people thought to carry an infectious disease and
then bill those people for their own confinement, as was done to those
returning from Wuhan, China, even though the quarantines were often excessive
and inconsistent with known facts and the epidemiological evidence. This crisis
seems to be breeding more government authority, rather than sensible restraint
and effective measures.
Americans surely should work to flatten the infection rate
curve in the country through good hygiene practices and a little well placed
caution when in public gatherings, since we don't want to add to any work
overload at local hospitals, but in the meantime, we don't want to allow the
people, who have the effrontery to rule us, any room to cultivate any fears and
exploit them to align with their adventures and ends. We must not allow
government promises to save us from COVID-19, no matter the level or severity
of the threat, to end in unseemly and unnecessary interventions and a
government that has grown even larger and more powerful, fat and happy, at the
expense of our individual liberty and our freedom suppressed, haggard and
threadbare.
By Justin O. Smith
*********************************
BLOG EDITOR (In Fascistbook
jail since 1/20/20): I’ve apparently been placed in restricted Facebook
Jail! The restriction was relegated after criticizing Democrats for supporting
abortion in one post and criticizing Virginia Dems for gun-grabbing legislation
and levying protester restrictions. Rather than capitulate to Facebook
censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the
Leftist censors ban me completely. Conservatives are a huge portion of
Facebook. If more or all Conservatives are banned, it will affect
the Facebook advertising revenue paradigm. SO FIGHT CENSORSHIP BY SHARE – SHARE
– SHARE!!! Facebook notified me in pop-up on 1/20/20: “You're
temporarily restricted from joining and posting to groups that you do not
manage until April 18 at 7:04 PM.”
___________________________
My Thoughts Leading to the
Smith ‘The Great American Panic of 2020’
An Intro by John R. Houk
© March 13, 2020
______________________
The Great American Panic
of 2020
Edited by JRH
© Justin O. Smith
