Open 'er Up! (Back to Business Edition)

Disclaimer: I'm about to call some people stupid. Or appear to call some people stupid. Or just suggest that some people are doing stupid things. I don't like to do any of these things. In the first place, it's not polite. Besides, I know that I do stupid shit all the time, so who am I to judge? Nobody, that's who. Why bother, then? I'll tell why. Because the stupid is really out of the box in America right now, and we should all be thinking of ways to get it back under lock and key.

People all over the country are taking to the streets to demand an end to all of these COVID-19 “stay at home” orders. They think it's bullshit! There was a real hubbub in Michigan, where an impressive number of cars showed up to drive around the state house, horns a'honkin and lights a'flashin, displaying signs and yelling at the governor to open up all of the restaurants, and factories, and every damn thing! There were also a lot of people standing around with signs and hard-ass looks on their faces. There was even a big group of them wearing camo and carrying big guns! No masks, either, they ain't wearing no damn masks. They were yelling, “lock her up!” about the governor, who is, indeed, a woman, and a Democratic woman at that. The entire world is in dire straights, and these people seem to wish that it was all much, much worse.

Why, pray tell, would anyone act this way? Is it because Donald Trump says that we need the country to get back to work, and he ain't wearing no damn mask either? Could be. Is it because those know-it-all doctors are starting to piss people off? Could be that, too. Is it because they need to go back to work so that they can pay their bills, buy food, and look for some affordable health care? Yeah, I think that's a bingo.

The same thing was happening in Frankfort, Kentucky; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Columbus, Ohio. So far that's a list of the usual suspects, Red states that love the Donald, and hate a long list of things that includes libtards, science, and the devil. There are a lot more of these rallies planned. Texas has one on calendar, but also many for places that I wouldn't immediately expect. California (!) for instance, and Oregon. Those west-coasters generally embrace science, did not vote for Trump, and are blessed with rational governments. But it appears that the stupid is well out of control now, and spreading faster than the Novel Coronavirus.

What are we really looking at? Who is behind this angry mob? Die-hard Trump fans? Certainly. Come hell or high water, those people will never admit that they were wrong. It's Trump-right-or-wrong to them. To paraphrase an old Russian proverb, “let him be the worst president in history, and dumb as a bag of hammers, but let him be our president.” (Original: “let it be worse; let it be ours.”) When Trump says “jump,” they don't ask how high. They just become airborne.

Also definitely libertarians, the Ayn Rand crowd. It's all about the FREEDOM, damn it! They're taking away our freedom! That's why the Tea Party is resurfacing, or at least people are waving their “Don't Tread on Me” flags. That's also why some of the gun club up in Michigan were waving Confederate flags. Somehow, I don't think that this is what those founders long ago were thinking when some of them said, “live free or die.”

Idaho, of course, is chiming in. The Idaho Freedom Foundation, in connection with other organizations, is planning a similar rally in Boise. They should get a big turnout up in the white homeland. That's a freedom crowd up there, a “freedom to discriminate and shoot up stop signs” crowd.

Infowars, unsurprisingly, has an opinion on the subject. They think that the virus is a plot hatched by the Chinese communists in league with the Deep State to destroy the American way of life and Donald Trump's career in politics. Inforwars is a bottomless font of stupid.

There's more stupid around right now than you could shake a stick at. The truth is probably that our less educated and more easily led brethren are reacting in stupid ways to a very real set of problems. American health care is no longer set up to help anyone; it's not even about the medical sciences anymore. It's a business; it's all about the money. You can die when we tell you to! That'll be when you're insurance runs dry. You lost your job? No more insurance for you! In the hospital on a ventilator? You have great insurance? They managed to save your life? Sorry, but there's a lot of stuff on your bill that was “out of your plan.” Your co-pay is $135,000. And by the way, American health care isn't in any hurry to develop and field adequate tests in sufficient numbers. Have you noticed? We're still waiting for that first, basic step to be taken. There's a reason for that, but it's too depressing to mention.

The American government is no more interested in people's well being than geese are interested in Jackson Pollack paintings. They're all the way on the money side now. They're going to skim billions from the stimuli and use the confusion to accrue more power to themselves.

Where can people turn to get a break? How about the churches? I'm sorry that I even brought it up. They're part of the problem. Churches are responsible for a considerable portion of our Corona virus cases, and deaths. “You can't tell us to close! God will protect us!” No one, to my knowledge, has been cured in a mega-church service, but a lot of people have been infected at one. Even one of the big-mouth “ I'm not closing my church!” pastors caught the bug himself and died. A fatal dose of either stupidity or greed.

It's no wonder that the American “your on your own” approach to government has driven Americans with few resources to distraction. All of those people are protesting against sensible medical approaches to this world-wide, deadly pandemic, approaches that are designed by experts to help them and their families live through the event, and I don't think that they could all be that stupid. Not actually stupid, although their actions and protests are stupid. They're just acting out, and they're taking advice from a bunch of idiots, from Trump, Fox News, Breitbart, Infowars, Rush Limbo, the whole crooked bunch of them. Those aforementioned devils in expensive suits are making the needy of America look stupid. You heard me. Hey! You people at those “open up the economy” demonstrations! Use your own heads! Stop acting stupid just because somebody who does not have your best interests at heart told you to do stupid shit!

As so often happens, the thread of this trouble making goes back to Reagan. Devil number one! He and his minions got the ball rolling on this anti-government hysteria. “Government is the problem!” “Government never helped anybody!” That started out as a trick to get rid of entrenched Democrats in Congress, “Vote against Washington!” was code for “vote in some new Republicans.” It worked too well. It was out of control, but still being pushed as the Republican agenda, by Newt Gingrich in his time in the House of Representatives. Do you remember? We had started to see many Hollywood movies in which the bad guy was the government, either a government agent or the whole government itself. We still see this in many movies. Now “government is the problem” has the status of a religion. “Drain the swamp!” It's the same now as it has always been: a trick to separate the Rubes from their money and their political rights.

If you or your baby get the Covid-19 and die, my heart goes out to you. If you get sick and live, or have only lost your job and/or your house, I'm sorry about that too. Be careful, however, where you place the blame. We, all of us, have allowed this situation to come into existence over the last forty years. It's our own damn fault that no one cares if we live or die. We were all too stupid to avoid it.