A Baker’s Dozen ™ Things we learned (or should have) during the First 18 months of the Pandemic (and how we can see if we are stupid or not stupid).

I’ve learned a lot from the Coronavirus epidemic: I think all our readers have, as well. We are definitely and at least slightly more informed about viruses and immunology than in January of 2020. But we have ALL learned a whole lot about the politicians and medical professionals whom we support – and whom we put in office or chose to “run our lives.”

Here are a few high points – feel free to contribute your own to the list (in the comments). Let us concentrate on election of politicians to office.  We have learned (or should have learned) that we put the wrong politicians into office …

They have demonstrated their stupidity… or have they demonstrated OUR stupidity?

1. IF the local saloon and liquor store and pot shop stayed open, but the local churches and AA meetings were forced to shut down.
2. IF we get fined or arrested for opening our business, but not for burning it down.
3. IF we can be arrested for walking in the park or playing in the park with our kid (and no one else), but our politician flies his family to a beach in Florida.
4. IF people can gather to protest on the street, but we cannot come together to praise the Lord, encourage and edify one another, in church or even in a home.
5. IF our politician moves people who are contagious with Covid 19 into nursing homes next to old people.
6. IF the local abortion clinic is open, but the pro-life pregnancy clinic is padlocked.
7. IF they praise a black man who fought with the police or was gunned down while shooting at police, but ignore the memory of a black store owner who was murdered by looters.
8. IF armed protesters can threaten us, but an honest homeowner or business man is charged for being armed in public or drawing his weapon in fear of his life or the lives of others.
9. IF a barber will be arrested for cutting hair. Unless he is cutting the politician’s hair. And if a gym is closed and fined for being open. Except for the times when a politician wants to exercise.
10. IF our neighbors died because they can’t get hospital treatment for cancer or heart conditions or kidney failure, while the hospitals are empty and waiting for the flood of Covid patients that never came.
11. IF our community, county, or State has a higher death rate from Covid 19 than countries and States which never imposed a mask mandate, quarantine or social distancing.
12. IF a city’s political rulers want to defund the police.. but then hires private security guards for city executives and politicians.
13. IF your school, town, city, county and/or State, more than a year later, repeat the same stupid mandates and fearmongering for a less-lethal, less-stressful variant of the Covid-19 than the original, and still claim they did a wonderful job for the last eighteen months.

Now, everyone makes mistakes.  Including (and perhaps especially) politicians in power and medical professionals (see below). But the REAL point is that SOME of us learn from our mistakes and don’t repeat them over and over again. Those who learn are NOT-STUPID; those who do not are… well…

Which is the point of this commentary.  Are we, the American people and people of the world the kind of people who LEARN from their mistakes, or repeat them?

1. Will we continue to obey the politicians and the doctors when they tell us to do the same things that didn’t work for a year and a half?
2. Will we continue to elect the politicians who DID make these mistakes OR elect their opponents who will do the same exact thing?
3. Will we continue to accept a system of government which is designed to, and working harder than ever to, steal away our lives and liberty and prosperity, and use the Pandemic as an excuse to do so?

If we answer YES to ANY of these three questions, then who are really the stupid ones?

A sidebar: Some interesting figures

From a reader.

Number of physicians in the US: 700,000.
Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year:120,000.
Accidental deaths per physician: 0.171
(U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services)

Number of gun owners in the US: 80,000,000.
Number of accidental gun deaths per year (all age groups): 1,500.
Accidental deaths per gun owner: 0.0000188

Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners…

“FACT: Not everyone has a gun, but everyone has at least one Doctor.”

Please alert your friends to this alarming threat… We must ban doctors before this gets out of hand…

Remember: Guns don’t kill people, doctors do…