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You Know What’s Wrong with America? Bedwetters!
It’s 8:30 p.m. on a beautiful Friday evening. Had a productive day. Vacuumed in the morning. Took the dogs for their two miles this afternoon. Cut the grass after the market closed at four as the temperature was moderating. (Lost some money today. Not much….I’ll live.) Had a shower. Had dinner. Now I’m listening to one of my favorite podcasts (Ricochet). My back is feeling better than last week. Even better this evening despite the yard work. Could be the rum and coke.
For some reason though, I’m not content to just be content. Just can’t leave well enough alone. My life hasn’t changed much. Too bad millions of my fellow Americans can’t say the same. I had a good day, but America didn’t. Retail sales down this morning 16.4% month over month. Worst result ever. Ever! 36 million new jobless claims since this started. About one-quarter of the entire American workforce unemployed or underemployed. Twenty-five percent! Let that sink in. I could go on and on, but half of you already know the argument, and the rest of you just don’t care. COVID-19 will kill some people. So will the worldwide poverty that is coming our way largely as a result of our policy response to this. I’m not sure which will kill more.
Some people are genuinely concerned about the dangers of this virus. I get it. They’re frightened. Must be terrible to live in constant fear. My heart bleeds for them. But. But. Must I embrace their irrational fear just because their fear is so real to them? On a larger scale, should America set policy based on the fear level of the most timid and panicked among us? Should all Americans be governed by the lowest common denominator of fear? Should the bedwetters be empowered to set policy for the rest of us?
I’ve been thinking about that word for a few days now. Bedwetter. Seems cruel doesn’t it? I have been reluctant to use that word in my public posts since it first occurred to me. I don’t want to appear cruel or insensitive. I spent a few years as a child as a bedwetter. I’m told a lot of boys have. I take no joy from the use of the word as an epithet. But…but…there comes a point when you have to call a spade a spade. Maybe that point comes after two months of bad decisions and infuriating condescension by stupid politicians. Or maybe it just comes after I’ve started my second rum and coke. Whatever.
I’ve had enough. I think there are a lot of people who have reached their limit. We gave the politicians the benefit of the doubt for a while. Or maybe we didn’t give them the benefit, but we acquiesced. We did what they told us. Some of us did it gladly. Some of us did it begrudgingly. But we did it. We took it.
But every day that goes by, more and more of us are questioning the need for all this. Every day that goes by, more and more of us are ready to resist. Speaking for myself, I’m looking for opportunities to do so publicly. Do you know of a church that is opening in defiance of the rules? Let me know. I’m an atheist, but I’ll be there to worship with you. Know of a diner that is serving breakfast in defiance of the rules? Let me know. I’ll be there to join you for pancakes and bacon. Do you know five people who are dying to break the rules to go to the beach? I’m not a beach person, but let me know, and I’ll make it an even half dozen. If we get arrested for it, all the better. Just make sure we get the video.
I’m done with this. We’re done with this. Dr. Martin Luther King said, “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” Civil disobedience has a pretty good track record in America. Nonviolent civil disobedience. I’m 67 years old, but I never felt compelled to break any rules in the ’60s. If my granddaughter ever asks me what I did to stop the war in Vietnam, I’ll say nothing sweetheart, but I stood up to fascism in 2020 because I love you, and that is my gift to you. I stood before the bedwetters, and I said no. Her dad and I will teach her about Star Trek, so she’ll know exactly what I mean when I say, “The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.”
Published in General
Defy Tyranny. Break the Lockdown
Jesse, I loved your post. I hope there are millions who will join you (and RushBabe). You’re exactly right: Pandering to the bed wetters is no way to run a government.
I think it is a mix of fear and need for control. Both control of others and control of a mysterious foe. It certainly is a lack of bravery.
Populations need to be trained (become accustomed) to acquiesce to the lowest common denominator of fear. [edit: they’re trained to be fearful.] Then that can be used to manage the response to any fear.
When did the rot set in, in your opinion?
Here in Virginia, the idiot Governor Northam has announced guidelines specific to worship services that, in addition to the usual list, there will be no singing permitted.
One cannot finish selling America to Xi until Americans are properly domesticated. Tyrants from Stalin to Hitler to Tojo to Mao openly lamented at the obstacle American gun rights create in conquering and subduing the American people. I am sure Xi welcomed the attack on gun rights perpetrated by Virginia’s Governor Northam and his party as soon as they gained control of the assembly.
No one wants to be the subject of the next song like this:
I don’t know who put Johnny in a totally anachronistic Union unform from the 1860s for this, but his heart is in the right place.
That just calls for the biggest black gospel choir some Virginian can find to give the Guv a concert on his capitol front porch. Might as well invite Kanye West and his group while you’re at it.
Enjoyed the post, @jessemcvay
But even States with in tact open carry laws went into lockdown in response to covid19. Their people were also (apparently) trained to acquiesce while still possessing their guns.
Wrt the habit of acquiescence in response to perceived danger I wonder if it’s an iteration of what happened during the McCarthy era, or after 9/11. Responses during both of which were supported by the majority – bedwetters or not.
The situation was not so clear eight weeks ago. Most Americans are responsible people willing to respond to an emergency. Few Americans are epidemiologists, or even doctors. They are at least willing to entertain the possibility that there is some merit to emergency measures pending the inevitable public debate, and that measures will be temperate, reasonable, and carefully administered. And the fact that other major countries were taking similar measures suggested that things are not too far askew.
Since then we the people have been treated to an endless series of pointless tyrannies and gross misallocation of health and economic resources “for the common good.”
I am very torn between concern that Covid-19 will eventually turn into something and that my leaders are too stupid to consider how many people they have set on fire with their moronic measures. “But, we passed a bill so it is all fine. At least for nice people. Those other people were just stupid, lazy, Trump supporters.”
Yes. We step up to the plate when asked. It’s two months later, and some pitchers have yet to throw the ball. We will do the right thing, but not forever, and especially not when the right thing slowly morphs into the wrong thing . . .
Not quite as slowly as I would have predicted. I’m sometimes too naive about the dangers posed by the authoritarian left.
I think a lot of citizens share your viewpoint. However, the performance of blue-state governors has hopefully given them a taste of authoritarianism that will result in more states turning red . . .
Hey, wait just a doggone minute! I can’t help it if I sleep really soundly. Often a full bladder just isn’t enough to stir me from a deep, REM slumber. I don’t see why I and others like me should get all the blame for a state power grab. Why, I say that’s misdirected resentment!
Soggy bottoms of the world UNITE!!! If our spouses can get used to it, then so can everyone else!