Get Busy Living

Regular readers of this space are aware that I have been against prolonged lockdowns since the relative beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak (e.g., writing in March—here, here, here and here). I argued then—and continue to argue now—that the cost of the lockdowns far exceeds the cost of the virus, even with 200,000 plus dead and more than 7 million cases recorded. 

Any objective assessment of the data collected on SARS-Cov-2 indicates that a well-defined and age-bounded elderly population with pre-existing health conditions (i.e., co-morbidities) is the only population that is at serious risk statistically, and only that population should take voluntary extreme measures to protect itself.

Richard Fernandez discusses the growing "rebellion" against government's attempts to keep countries locked down:

The lockdown orthodoxy may have had its “Walter Cronkite abandons Vietnam” moment when the WHO admitted that the policy as implemented may be doing more net harm than good: “Recent commentary from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) special envoy on COVID-19 has sparked questions about the legitimacy of lockdowns to stop the spread of coronavirus. ‘We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,’ the WHO’s Dr. David Nabarro says.”

Politicians who have enlarged their powers under the aegis of public health should realize that the desire for freedom eventually overcomes fear. It starts gradually at first but it builds and never goes away. Eventually, freedom — to some — becomes the goal of life itself as depicted in the prison movie, The Shawshank Redemption.

Red: I don’t think you got to be doing this to yourself, Andy. [Referring to his planned escape.] It’s just shitty pipe dreams. I mean, Mexico is way the hell down there, and you’re in here, and that’s the way it is.

Andy: Yeah. Right. That’s the way it is. It’s down there and I’m in here. I guess it comes down to a simple choice really. Get busy living or get busy dying.

The urge to escape confinement is like a virus. And it’s contagious.

At the end of the day, people (the vast majority who are, in fact, progressives) continue to hide in their homes. Worse they insist that their fear should be the criterion through which their politicians —and yes, the vast majority of politicians who continue to advocate lockdowns are, in fact, Democrats—should mandate how the rest of us live our lives. They're not only wrong in principle, even as they drape themselves in virtue signaling—they're also selfish. 

Children, young people, and adults under 60 are in little danger from virus and yet, people like Joe Biden want to lockdown yet again. Biden and his co-catastrophists love the daily pandemic porn emanating from their media. They love the theatrical use of masks whose efficacy against SARS-Cov-2 is highly questionable. That's the "plan" they famously demand. Not only does it dismiss the struggles of low income people who must work to survive and cannot work remotely, the data on SARS-Cov-2 indicates that their "plan" simply doesn't work. 

The Shawshank Redemption is on my Top-10 list of great movies. It is, in its own way a quintessentially American story—courage in the face of threat, dedication to a goal, and having the will to successfully achieve that goal. "Andy" was talking about a prison break, not about a virus. But that doesn't matter. His sentiment is on target:

I guess it comes down to a simple choice really. Get busy living or get busy dying.