As IF Times

source: https://nationalpost.com/news/world/coronavirus-covid19-covid-19-pandemic-canada

In only a few weeks the world has gone from relative ignorance about covid-19 to full blown panic over an infection that appears to be spreading exponentially.  While the nexus of the virus seemed to originate in China, incidents of infection are being found worldwide, even in unlikely places such as Italy and Iran. The fear and panic has affected virtually every segment of society especially as it relates to travel.  There are stories of vacationers who embarked  upon 14 day cruises only to have that trip extended another 14 days in the form of a quarantine.

If nothing else, it’s a change from the boring narratives of the global warming crowd with their 16 year-olds moaning about lost childhood and missing penguins. I suspect that crowd may be annoyed at having their fake crisis spotlight taken away from them by a real crisis. All of a sudden, people are more concerned about the guy coughing next to them than a few absent polar bears. A genuine existential threat pushing away the fake one like it was leftover turkey the week after Thanksgiving.

I’m not in the medical business so I’ll defer to those experts who are charged with handling this outbreak.  The CDC has a website which reports the on-going status of the outbreak and people can do their own research.  As an obvious reminder to those who haven’t figured it out, CNN is not a source of information on this….or anything.  In addition, this video, created showing statistics by the World Health Organization may give a larger perspective on this and other epidemics in history.

None of this is meant to downplay the potential damage that this outbreak can cause; we need only look at the panic that has occurred in world stock markets to see that people are in full hysteria mode.  Few things focus the mind more clearly than the possibility of imminent death.  But is imminent death a high probability given the safeguards being put in place and with the advances of medical techniques not available in previous outbreaks?  Calmer voices think not.  Some of the keenest minds in the medical industry are working on a resolution to this problem right now and of course, we do expect a resolution. I’m not so convinced that hoarding freeze dried foods and deadbolting all doors is a rational course of action given what’s known….no matter what CNN says.

As I mentioned earlier, panic seems to grip people when they fear that imminent harm will come to them.  It’s the imminent part that creates the hysteria. Smoking is bad for you and it will likely kill you before your time.  But no one panics about it because that demise is way off in the future.  This is the same for all drugs including alcohol in great amounts.  These threats to personal well being can be avoided and yet, without imminent harm, these threats are blithely ignored.

As an illustration of how irrational people are,  we want to point out that there is something out there that is guaranteed to cause discomfort, suffering, starvation and has already been responsible for hundreds of millions of preventable deaths…and yet people embrace it anyway.  I am talking about socialist and communist philosophy  Despite all that we know about the history of such regimes, there are still those today who are proponents for their implementation.  These regimes don’t necessarily happen through the use of force.  Typically, they are allowed to rise because the populace are somehow convinced that policies of such regimes would benefit them in the long run.  The most common hooks are the promises of equality and fairness. They fail to see that a long miserable existence leading to a miserable death is likely in their future once collectivism takes hold.  Sweden, long regarded as model of ‘good socialism’ is devolving into a nation of prohibited speech and civil violence at a level not supposedly seen in a civilized nation.

Communist and socialist regimes are cancers on mankind and their ill effects eclipse any natural viral outbreak, including corona virus. While the idea is attractive to the minds of the mentally feeble, it doesn’t confer any benefit to those afflicted with its belief system.  At least with cigarettes and booze, you get a short term buzz.  As this article illustrates, the incidences of communist regimes throughout history have left in their wake hundreds of millions of people extinguished, if not directly by violence, then passively via starvation and oppression.  Few pandemics in history have wrought as much damage to the world’s population as that brought on by socialist/communist regimes.

It’s somewhat amusing to observe pundits of all kinds, hair alight, frantically warning about a virus breakout that is actively and urgently being addressed whereas they ignore the much more deadly political cancer generating popularity with the feeble minded.  It’s like worrying about a wasp flying into your house while at the same time leaving your basement door open to a yard filled with snakes. After this corona virus crisis is over, we hope scientists will find a cure for a much deadlier affliction:  mass psychosis.

link:  Sanders gets a second look

Bernie Sanders is the extension of the bad boy obsession phenomenon that consumes many young girls during a crazed time in their lives.  He’s the geriatric version of Fonzie.  Usually during their teen years but not exclusively, women are vulnerable to the charms of roguish boys, who appear to live outside of the mainstream and flout popular social norms.  Heck, they’re even a bit dangerous.  To their friends and families, the girls’ obsession seems weird because the object of their  affections are generally louts, ne’er do wells and are social outcasts. No good could ever come of the relationship.  Eventually of course, the boy moves on to the next victim and the gal is crushed.

It’s a stretch to imagine a leather jacketed, greasy haired, brooding hoodlum turning into Bernie Sanders ( and frankly that should scare all girls off of such guys) but the parallels are astonishing.  Among all of the objectionable people vying to attain the nomination to be the Democratic nominee, Sanders is by far the most objectionable.  For, while all of the candidates conveniently say the same things and pander to whomever they can  to get votes, Sanders genuinely believes his crazed utterances and has unabashedly been doing so his entire career.

Similar to his senate cohort, Joe Biden, Sanders has lived his entire life suckling on the public teat, rising from guitar playing communes to mayor of a small town to being elected to the US senate, to being a contender for the US presidency. It’s Horatio Alger-The Nightmare Version.  Throughout the time of his rise in political favor, he has consistently advocated for support of a socialist society with the usual bleats about wealth disparity, racism, sexism etc etc.  Fortuitously for Sanders, this on going preaching against capitalism has not prevented him from acquiring great wealth, including several homes, a large stock portfolio, big payouts and even a most un-socialist bauble, an Audi R-8 sports car worth a cool 100g.

Sanders is not alone in his hypocritical life.  Al Gore and Joel Osteen are the most obvious examples of charlatans who preach their respective brands of piousness while having a siphon attached to the public purse. The genius of all of these people is their ability to find that part of the population that are susceptible to their entreaties…and then make truckloads of money from them!  Al Gore is not living in a wood cabin eating kelp and travelling by oxcart.  Joel Osteen is not wearing sackcloth and handing out bread.   And Bernie Sanders is not sharing his ill gotten filthy lucre with his adoring acolytes.

During this interminable period of Democratic debates, few things are more odious than to see this avowed socialist wag his finger at the public, telling them how things should be.  Imagine;  a man who has done nothing, telling people how to do everything.  According to the ‘polls’ however, his popularity is strong across a wide swath of America. I think this is the equivalent of polling goo goo eyed teen aged girls who think that Bernie is Fonzie.  Nobody would trust the judgement of teen aged girls on anything much less major decisions on the direction of society.  His push for socialism continues even as there is not a single instance of such a system working anywhere, now, or ever in the history of the world. Wake up girls; the man’s a goof.  He does live outside of the mainstream, he is anti social, but more importantly, he is more than a bit dangerous.