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 RealClearPolitics – Video – Moore On Wealthy Peoples Money: “Thats Not Theirs, Thats A National Resource, Its Ours”.

It’s pretty clear that news conduits are publishing Moore’s comments for comic relief on a slow news day.   It’s obvious that at core, he harbors strong communist values despite his curious success in the capitalist world.  The appearance is even a giveaway.  The unkempt hair, the hat, the scruffy beard.  He looks like a Fidel Castro but much better fed.  Some may recall that just recently, he was suing the Weinstein brothers for monies allegedly owed to him from his recent celluloid delusion.  If he believes everyone’s money belongs in the collective socialist pool, why bother fighting for it? 

There is no more remarkable testament to America’s freedom of expression than the fact that Moore is able to spread his deranged gospel …and people will pay for it!  He reminds me of the precocious but annoying kid at family gatherings who always wishes to be the centre of attention by doing goofy things such as pulling spaghetti from one nostril through to the other.  As he gets older, he becomes a social pariah and thus behaves more bizarrely to get attention from increasingly aloof peers.  Somehow, kindred spirits to Moore find him and they glom onto each other like so many globules of mercury.  Unfortunately for us, some of those kindred spirits own media outlets and so Moore’s warped views reach the mainstream without his parents around to tell him to go to his room. 

What our hero is advocating in the linked video is outright socialism.  Someone should drop a note in his breakfast barrel to remind him that he lives in a country that happens to be ground zero of capitalism in the world, though admittedly many are trying to change that.   It’s as if he had filled himself at the buffet table and then preached to the people after him not to eat there.  Why don’t people get tired of hypocrites like Moore?  Why don’t they tie him up in the dead of night, throw him in a rucksack and ship him one way to Cuba?  His opinion of things may change when he’s in a place where the access to Big Macs is not as easy as he has obviously become accustomed to.   It will dawn upon him as to why there are no fat communists, except the leaders.   He may be surprised to find that in a society which shares the wealth, there isn’t any. It’s easy to share nothing.  All those with brains and drive have left…to the U.S.  But maybe he’ll find a more willing audience for his opinions there…if they let him speak at all.  I’m sure there would be many Cubans willing to swap places with him.

Moore mistakes his limited commercial success to genius.  In America, they’ll buy anything.  Even William Hung of American Idol fame sold albums.  He should confine his voracious appetite to restaurants instead of the hand that feeds him.