I was listening , this morning, to a podcast I was a guest on, from a couple of months ago. Don’t know if you know about Apostasy Now, but as of this morning, MrDragonbeard has posted the podcast. It’s long and I think you can tell because near the end, I seem to start rambling. The podcast is a little over 3 hours long. Ouch. Anyway, listening to what is now history had me thinking about what I believed then, about the election in the US, and what I know now. It also brings to mind the discussion we had about the pandemic and what I’ve come to think since that recording.

Of course we went from topic to topic but the main two were current politics (mainly in the US, but also Canada) and of course, the pandemic which has dominated most of the conversations and actions in everyone’s life for the last several months before we recorded and of course, since. It’s hard to predict politics, especially here in the US and I really did believe that the election, with all of it’s irregularities, would be resolved in favor of Donald Trump. How wrong I was! I think I understand, now, why so many courts refused to intervene. It’s that the changes made in certain states before the election, were known before the election, and if one or the other campaigns wanted to dispute the rule changes they could have done that before November 3rd. Coming in after the election and claiming fraud, which it was, is too late. Trumps lawyers had plenty of time before election day to overturn those unconstitutional rule changes. So that’s that.

Just one more comment on the election before moving on: Those of you cheering right now about the fall of Donald Trump, and those equally wanting some sort of retaliation for those that worked for Trump or his supporters, beware what you wish for because as it becomes reality for those you purport to hate, so will it come true to you. Your kind always eat their own, eventually.

As to the pandemic, many states have gone back into some sort of lockdown as the numbers of cases have increased across the country. Which was not unexpected. Remember last spring/early summer, when those numbers were declining, the CDC telling everyone that there was a good possibility of seeing a second wave in the fall/winter. Well, that was one prediction they had right. Unfortunately because it’s also caused a panic in some areas that is unneeded. We’re talking cases here and not specifically hospitalizations or even deaths. Yes, it does appear from what we’ve been told that hospitals are at or near capacity but that’s all we hear. for instance, how many beds does Hospital X have in total, and how many of those beds are occupied? Or are they only referring to ICU capacity, which would be much smaller for any hospital? Here’s a question: Why aren’t the media asking these questions instead of just taking the word of some government flunky. Its amazing how little interested the media seem to be, except for assigning blame (Trump, not the Chinese) and I guarantee you, we’ll most likely never hear of this again after January 20 this year.

Some states, like New York, are apparently opening up (some) at the height of cases in their state because, well, if they don’t, there won’t be any business left to open after the virus subsides, again. All of this started with flatten the curve, which somehow morphed into having no cases or very few, before opening the specific state. Like everything else during this pandemic, things change a an almost weekly basis about what is safe to do and what is not. If only the people that instituted the rules for the rest of us actually followed those same rules, more people might believe the science they claim to back their decisions (there is none).

Why is it a small number of people decide on what are essential services and what are not? Of course grocery stores and pharmacies seem to make sense, but are marijuana shops and liquor stores more essential than say, salons, dry cleaners, gymnasiums, or massage therapy? I know people who would say getting a mani/pedi was much more important to their psychological well being than liquor or pot and the same for some that miss going to the gym. Remember when people in Michigan weren’t allowed outside, to mow their grass? A lot of things in that state, even doing your own landscaping, were deemed non-essential activities. This is why, as I noted in another piece, non-Covid related deaths were on the rise. Few seem to care about the decisions made for us are leading to a larger disaster than the pandemic itself has caused.

I’ve been very critical, with cause I believe, about how government at every level has responded to this pandemic. They have shown no knowledge of how to react in an emergency and by the way, have not inculcated any trust with the public. It’s time that changed and maybe it’s time for government to get out of the way because as we have always known, government involvement in anything increases the probability of failure.