Shattered Trust

Oddly enough, as I scroll back through old entries, I discovered that many of my thoughts center on a lack of transparency, deceptiveness, and trust issues with so many things.  The original title of this entry was going to be simply "trust," but I discovered that I had already written one with that title prior.

It will be difficult, and even perhaps impossible to thoroughly present what's on my mind here in the heartland in such a forum.  This could end up being a lengthy entry as a result.  The bottom line is that we are in the midst of a "pandemic."  Now let me state up front that this virus should indeed be taken seriously - JUST as we take other things like influenza seriously.  But in this time of pandemic, we have heard so many lies, conflicting statements, and outright fear mongering that it is no longer prudent to simply trust blindly what our government and the media say.  Let's face it:  no matter what news outlet you watch (I will regularly compare CNN and Fox, along with the occasional network feed), the coverage has been nearly all "virus-virus-virus" for 6 weeks now.  You mean to tell me that there is no other news happening anywhere in the world?  There is, and we'll get to a couple of those in a moment.

Let's simply deal with the government misinformation first.  While it has now been changed, THIS was found on the CDC website on April 1, fully 3 months AFTER we were told of how contagious the virus was when people were asymptomatic:

     "Can someone spread the virus without being sick?
     People are thought to be most contagious when they are most symptomatic (the sickest).
     Some spread might be possible before people show symptoms; there have been reports of this occurring with this new coronavirus,  
     but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads."

My main regret was in not taking a screen shot of it then, but others can report on the accuracy of this as well, and I questioned it on April 1 on my personal facebook page.  If you recall, back at about the beginning of March, we were told that we needed "two weeks to flatten the curve."  Now, here we are, 2 MONTHS later, and the virus is still on the rise in many parts of the country, including my home state of Nebraska and my home county of Dawson.

The government's expert and task force member, Dr. Fauci, initially projected catastrophic death numbers and infection rates.  This was apparently done using a study that was well documented as being highly flawed.  It was reported on one of the news sites back when the death toll predictions kept getting lowered, but I'm no longer finding  a link to it.  What is now causing a shattering of the trust in what the CDC and the government are doing is the intentional padding of numbers of those who die of other causes, but because they test positive for  COVID19, are being identified as victims of the virus instead.  Even those who have NOT tested positive, but die with viral symptoms are being identified as victims of the virus.  A youtube video of two doctors making just such a claim has now been censored by youtube.  The full video can still be viewed here.  Why censor a member of the medical profession?  Multiple other reports of this happening have also been removed from internet searches, where they appeared last week.   Italy reports that 99% of it's fatalities were already ill with other things.  And yet the mainstream media and the government both continue to push a narrative that the worst is yet to come, despite the growing number of medical professionals who are indeed on the front lines challenging their assertions?  Why would this be, if not to continue to incite fear and panic, and to justify the often draconian measures many states have undertaken which constitute government overreach in the eyes of many.

Because I need to move on to the "other news" that also shows a breach of trust between the American public and the government, I will have to merely mention how this virus has been politicized ON BOTH SIDES.  It is sickening that the virus numbers are being padded to overinflate the mortality rate as if to continue to fuel panic and fear.  That is a sure way to get many Americans to stop trusting you, when the virus becomes more of a political weapon to be wielded, rather than something which the government should be providing assistance in coping with those infected.  I need to briefly touch on how this virus will  have far more damaging effects long term than just the deaths from the virus itself.  It is questionable whether or not these lockdowns are having any real effect.  For comparison, Sweden did absolutely nothing, and the death rate there is no more significant than anywhere else in the world, and there appears to be a herd immunity developing there as a result.  And this is to say little of the apparent government overreach happening in such states as Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Kansas, and even here to a lesser degree in Nebraska.  It is worth noting how often the phase "for your safety" comes up in these instances.  Two things come to mind - one is that this is highly insulting to the American public, as if we were incapable of protecting ourselves from danger.  This is in itself a violation of the charters of freedom and what they intend.  It should also be pointed out that the public must exercise due diligence in educating itself - but sadly the very point of this is that it's near impossible to trust most of the sources we have to do just that today.   The second point  is that Jews were routinely told the very same thing -  "für Ihre Sicherheit" (for your safety) as they were rounded up and ultimately exterminated in Nazi Germany.

Now has there been other news, that is largely unreported?  Yes.  Two major stories come to mind, and the first demonstrates the glaring hypocrisy of the mainstream media, and a prime cause of the shattered trust in government and media I'm speaking of.  It is a tale of two candidates:  Brett Kavanaugh (for the SCOTUS - September 2018) and Joe Biden (for POTUS - 2020).  You may recall the firestorm over Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation:  the nonstop media coverage, the very public hearings on the allegation of sexual misconduct from his high school days, and the figurative crucifixion of the man's character, which by all other counts was impeccable. What is fascinating about the CNN timeline just linked is that nowhere does it mention that two of the three allegations were later proven to be demonstrably false, and the remaining accusation had significant holes in it (especially a lack of corroborating witnesses, along with witnesses who contradicted the accuser), which is what prompted his ultimate confirmation.  Yet during the entire process, calls for "believing all women" were constant.

Now fast forward a year and a half, and an accusation has now come out, but against a liberal candidate for President:  Joe Biden.  Are all women still to be believed?  Regarding the aforementioned CNN, this is what they've presented thus far:  Nothing.  In fact, the only network that has provided any coverage of substance at all on this current accusation against Joe Biden (which has far more damaging evidence in support of it than the accusation against Justice Kavanaugh), is Fox.  Is there now a glaring double standard here?  Absolutely.   We've got one party that is galactically hypocritical on it's "moral outrage," while the other party (the party of morals and family values) continues to engage in behavior that is anything but moral or of family values.  This war between the parties plays out on the media daily.  Is it any wonder I believe there is absolutely NO reason to trust those who serve in state and federal government?

Now let's look at a third story that has been breaking, but mostly on the conservative Fox News Channel.  As I've watched other network/cable news outlets, I've seen virtually no reporting on the renewed interest in the case against Michael Flynn, who if you recall, was nominated and briefly held the position of National Security Advisor to President Trump until late 2017 when he was convicted of lying under oath and fired from the position.  Again, fast forward a couple of years, and what we now find is that, like the entire Russian Collusion Hoax, the entire proceeding was a hit job from the beginning, orchestrated by many of the same players in the FBI as the collusion hoax.  Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real thing, and there are many in this country who suffer from it.

Since when was politics about gaining and preserving power?  Since when was this country founded on people or ideologies coming to power and working to hold it at all costs?  This is the pattern in virtually every failed empire and civilization in history, and it is precisely what the founders hoped to prevent in our democratic republic, with the concepts of "checks and balances," as well as the Electoral College, to prevent a few populated areas from controlling the entire nation.  It is all that I've attempted to outline right here that makes me instantly skeptical of anything spoken of in either the mainstream media or from any number of government agencies.

There was a time when this country's religion, morality, values, and liberty were all headed in the same direction.   Alexis de Toqueville said in the 1830's, "Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country." (excerpt from "Democracy in America")  In this same book, he postulates, "Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."  So what was the secret of America's greatness?  A foundation established on the Christian principles of liberty, morality, and virtue.  As this foundation erodes, we see the cause of the shattered trust:  a government that has failed at every level to live up to the principles established at its' founding, and a media that is all too complicit in propping up the shattered shell of a government that no longer carries out it's duties the way in which they were intended.

What is the answer?  Certainly not in propping up these shattered hulks of the remnants of the Constitutional system of governance we have today, both at the state and federal levels.  The foundation has to be rebuilt first.  And that means to recapture the virtue and morality that once guided this great nation long ago under the banner of the Christian religion.  It does not mean becoming a theocracy, but it should be clear that when there are no standards any longer, we are engaged in a free-falling death spiral.  Think about it.  And think about what you can do to rebuild the foundation now lost.

ADDENDUM, May 8, 2020:  Yesterday, the case against Michael Flynn was dropped by the Dept. of Justice. Predictably, the very people who began this witch hunt were up in arms, while those on the other side hailed it as a great victory.  Also predictably, Fox reported on the contents of both the reasons for dismissal and the pages of released documents that contained many of the key players claiming they had no reason to believe in any Russian collusion, while CNN interviewed Andrew McCabe (rather than report on the reasons for dismissal and the content of the documents), who is not only portrayed in these documents as one of the liars-in-chief, but was then allowed to spin and lie about the contents of the documents in question.