My Dad was 86 when he died some years back. His last years were marred by a vascular disease that robbed his brain of blood flow and resulted in loss of memory. So, when he died it was like losing him a second time; the first was the loss of the guy we knew, the second was the loss of his life.
Even when we knew his physical demise was imminent, his death was still a blow to my sister and me. The following week was a blur as the funeral arrangements were scheduled and carried out. Our lives went on but there was a constant emotional overhang regardless of what we were doing.
You know that feeling. You do the tasks you need to do, concentrating on getting them done but having that gnawing in the back of your mind that when the task is over your thoughts will unavoidably return to the grief.
Today, March 21st of 2020, is like that for me. I live in Pennsylvania where Governor Tom Wolf has ordered the close of most businesses in response to the Corona virus panic.
And I feel like my country has died. At the least, our nation has suffered a mortal blow and my mind continues to return to my grief.
The vocal part, and perhaps also the greater part, of our population is lining up to commit economic and political suicide at the command of the state. They willingly follow the governor over the cliff. Years of indoctrination in the state schools has paid off in a big way as the citizenry turns to government leaders for salvation. Few are willing or curious to examine whether Wolf even has the authority to declare the closures.
Years of usurpation of authority have dulled our collective sense of limits to civil government. More years of abuse of power (think of cops breaking into the wrong house or asset forfeitures) have made us truly fearful of our public “servants.” Does anyone else shudder like me when the governor grants broad “discretion” to our local inspectors and police to enforce his order?
And let’s not ignore how the population, seemingly of the whole world, has been stampeded into a gigantic panic about what seems to amount to a bad case of influenza. No one is suggesting another Spanish flu is upon us. Already in the 2019-2020 flu season about 22,000 Americans have died of the NON-COVID19 flu. The “regular” flu. And that’s not far out of line with a typical flu season. No one suggested shuttering Pennsylvania for the flu.
“Just comply with the government.”
“We’re all gonna die from COVID-19!”
Well, we are all gonna die; nobody gets out alive. But we’re being steam-rolled into accepting a cure worse than the disease. Destroying the economy (and unfortunately that’s now baked into the cake) will kill and destroy more Americans than COVID-19. But don’t worry; though the government broke it, they’ll be sure to fix it. Be certain that that cure will also be worse than the disease.
Where’s our critical thinking?
In 1963, R.J.Rushdoony warned us of this day in his book, The Messianic Character of American Education. Our public schools claim jurisdiction over the minds of American children along with the input of facts and interpretations. By that claim, public schools have defined themselves as America’s only state-established church – teaching our children what’s right and what’s wrong.
We threw away our critical thinking skills by subjecting ourselves to the religion of the state. We are quite docile in paying extortionary taxes to create ever more docile government-worshipping drones. We worry about possible flu deaths while ignoring actual deaths of one million (!) babies per year at abortion mills.
We worship the state and not God. We turn to the state for every need. When the Israelites turned to idols, eventually God turned them over to those idols to see how they would like it.
That day is now here. And it feels like a death in the family.
~John Bingaman, March 2020
