I have a friend who has shared a lot of wisdom in the 12 years I’ve known him. We’ve disagreed plenty along the way, but it’s been constructive. In personal matters like family and well-being, we’ve been in lockstep.
I even value the disagreements, because I know my views are only as solid as the pressure testing they receive. But on Facebook recently, he shared a view that crossed the line.
Mood Music:
His post was built around an article about how Americans were made of sturdier stuff during past pandemics, most notably the 1968–69 Hong Kong Flu, when citizens didn’t let the contagion stifle their freedoms. Hell, the article says, we had Woodstock during that period.
After moaning about how weak we Americans have become, he suggested those who agree with the current COVID-19 lockdowns should move to Europe and stop calling themselves American:
Let’s unpack this:
- CDC records estimate that the Hong Kong flu killed 1 million worldwide, including 100,000 in the United States. That was for the entire two-year run of the pandemic.
- The earliest COVID-19 cases are believed to have surfaced in November and in barely six months has killed nearly 300,000 people globally, including close to 83,500 in the U.S. alone. That’s all in the early months of this pandemic.
- Basing what we now know about COVID-19 — which isn’t much — and the 20/20 hindsight we have on the Hong Kong Flu, that flu wasn’t as lethal. It had a slower infection rate, people got sick right away and a vaccine came along much sooner.
Comparing that pandemic to this one, especially with the piss-poor data we currently have, is both comical and unfortunate. Suggesting those who “made America great” are long gone and that those still here are “wimps” — that’s more than a little insulting to people who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
My friend has said much that I’ve agreed with in recent months. I don’t believe open-ended lockdowns are sustainable. I saw the lockdowns as necessary to keep the healthcare system from getting overrun — to give it time to build the resources and processes needed to handle the caseload. From my limited knowledge of the medical profession, I believe a couple months of this should have been enough.
It appears that hasn’t been the case.
But the suggestion that the current situation is simply a tyrannical power grab by local, state and federal authorities? Laughable. No official in their right mind wants a frozen economy. How they might benefit from this is the stuff of impossible-to-prove conspiracy theories. Calling people wimps for wanting to protect lives? I don’t know the right word for that, but it’s nothing good.
The suggestion I find most objectionable is that people who disagree — who believe the lockdowns are the right thing — should stop calling themselves Americans and leave.
One of the best things about America is our right to disagree without being thrown in the gulag.
My friend, when you talk like that, I conclude that you love America — indeed, you fought for it on the battlefield and I respect you for that — but have contempt for Americans who don’t share your worldview.
You like to complain about so-called liberal elitists who look down their noses at the ordinary working folk, telling them how stupid they are.
But that particular brand of elitism goes both ways, and you’ve displayed plenty of it from your right-wing perch.
The first wave of the Hong Kong flu had long ended by the time Woodstock came around. No one during the time of Woodstock even thought about that flu anymore. It wasn’t until much afterwards that the second wave of the flu hit. Frankly I don’t even remember it very much at all. It did not grab the headlines like the current pandemic which is much more sinister.