Unity threatened by COVID despotism

          THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   9/14/2021

Unity threatened by COVID despotism

My first salute and praise on September 14 is for the 36^th anniversary of our marriage in 1985, which rewarded my search for the “right woman” before the wrong one caught my eye. That Barbara has kept our spirits high through thin and thick (my body size, anyway) is a tribute to the best that life has to offer.

Secondly, vote “Yes” on the recall and check Larry Elder’s name to replace “Hair Gel” Newsom.

Having seen commemorations of the 9/11 Islamic terrorist attacks on New York, Washington D.C. and the intended destruction of Congress by the third plane—thwarted by brave men on Flight 93—I’ll not be redundant. I grieved the nearly 3,000 murdered by fanatics and the hundreds of fire and police responders who disregarded their own personal safety and lost many of their fellow heroes.

I’ll never forget turning on the morning news to live coverage of the first tower immersed in fire and smoke, waking Barbara to see the second plane hitting the other tower; my legs failed me and a burden descended on my heart and the hearts of unified Americans.

Now, I grieve the internal division, partisan animosity and dehumanization of the America-loving right by the Marxist left.

The unity felt by Americans after 9/11/2001 was partly an illusion given that a segment of the political class obsessed in delegitimizing the presidency of George W. Bush. The Florida recount and the Supreme Court decision—that Al Gore couldn’t continue to manipulate and ignore Florida election laws searching for votes to proclaim himself the winner—was, until Sept. 11, the rallying cry (“selected, not elected”) for a Democrat Party in full rejection of the 2000 election results. Write your own hypocrisy punchline.

Within days of the inspirational singing of “God Bless America” on the Capitol steps by Democrat and Republican members of Congress, Senator Hillary Clinton held up a New York newspaper headline, “Bush knew,” on the Senate floor. I saw with my own eyes that she was taking the side of the conspiracy nuts and Bush-deranged left: “fire can’t melt steel,” “a controlled explosion,” “the Jews were warned,” “a missile, not an airliner, hit the Pentagon,” and on and on. Such lunacy appeared on this page.

Personally, I’d rejected the political left many years before. I watched 1) the bold attempt to steal the 2000 election; followed by 2) the two-faced, “for, then against, then for” the wars to overthrow the Taliban, the source of the al Qaeda attacks, and Saddam Hussein; followed by 3) the crass politicization of the war on terror by Democrats. That all led in no small way to my writing letters refuting leftist lies to editors of newspapers in Sacramento, Chico, Redding and, starting in 2005, my column in the Red Bluff Daily News.

Readers have seen numerous disingenuous and shameful attempts to intimidate this writer, whether by insisting that the editor is wasting space on this column, or that I have no credibility because I never served in uniform, or that I’m Satan because I am aligned with that Satan Trump. Such fools only steel my determination.

Finally, it is questionable whether America is safer now than before 9/11, since Demented Joe Biden left us with a giant “loser” label over the botched Afghanistan “bug out.” He deferred and groveled before the Taliban over what they would let us do to evacuate Americans and Afghan supporters. His State Department resisted allowing them to leave, blaming the Taliban; it was only due to Biden’s brainless decision to take military out first that 13 of our finest service men and women died from a suicide bomber.

Then, when a private effort of patriotic Americans and former military succeeded in getting a planeload in the air, the State Dept. tried to take credit. Before invading, we could count on the Northern Alliance to help attack and overthrow the Taliban; now, there is no Northern Alliance to resist ISIS-K terrorism.

Americans are less free now than before 9/11 due to leftist/Marxist-instigated speech codes, the cancel culture; threatened jobs and livelihoods from physical and social media mobs; misguided pandemic-related businesses restrictions; anti-freedom of association (vaccine passports); and freedom of religion curtailed by unconstitutional “lock-downs.”

I maintain that mandatory vaccination orders are evil, un-American and an abomination to a free people whose governments exist by design to protect Constitutional rights, not violate them. Instead, masks can be required at a moments notice (LA and Oregon), and are ineffectual as studies—and comparisons of “mask mandate” states and schools to those without—show.

“Masks are here to stay as long as libs need to shame their political enemies” (by Glenn H. Reynolds). Mask mandates now exist as virtue-signaling, tribe-reinforcing means to force compliance by you, and by businesses threatened with fines for not enforcing orders lacking legal standing or medical efficacy.

Vaccines are a good, but limited, tool to get the Wuhan Flu under control; it will never be eradicated but it is becoming a minor health threat like seasonal flu or pneumonia. New cases and deaths peaked in early September and are declining (worldometers.com/coronavirus).

What were 1-2 “Serious, Critical” infections per 1,000 cases, rose to 3 per 1,000, and are now declining. Fewer than one in 5,000 vaccinated Americans has tested positive (CDC); “viral loads” in the “vaxxed” are shown to be of little threat to others; new cases and deaths remain predominantly among the elderly—meaning the rest of us can live normally again.

The exceptions to Biden’s vax orders—sub-100 employee companies, postal workers, illegal aliens, etc.—prove the arbitrariness, and medical non-necessity, of vaccine mandates. Republican governors are righteous in their rejection of these unconstitutional orders.