There are leaders, and there are followers. There are also those who like to jump in front of a marching parade, realizing which way the crowd is going.
There were many COVID hysterics back in 2020. In fact, it was a significant majority of Americans. There were different degrees of hysterics, just as there are now.
Some people were very fearful because that’s what the media and the so-called experts told them to be. There were some who might have been a little skeptical, but went along with all of the hysteria anyway.
There were some people who were skeptical, but they didn’t dare to speak up and speak out against the hysteria. They didn’t want to be seen as uncaring. They didn’t want to be called a grandma killer.
There were a few of us who did speak up from day one, or at least from early on. Even if you have little knowledge of viruses and medicine in general, it shouldn’t be hard to be highly skeptical of what the establishment media and politicians are saying.
And for libertarians, it should have been easy to see in March 2020 that what was happening was wrong. It doesn’t take any extensive study in the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) to see that it is immoral, unlawful, and wrong to order people to stay at home and to shut down “non-essential” businesses.
Should We Forgive?
If you know (or know of) a person who was a COVID hysteric in 2020 and has now dramatically shifted their viewpoint, what is the proper response?
Should you:
- Just pretend like the person was never a COVID hysteric and give them a pass?
- Rub it in their face that they were so wrong a couple of years ago?
Perhaps there is a third option, which may be best for dealing with the average person. You don’t rub it in this person’s face unless they were particularly obnoxious towards you back in the day of the hysterics. You also don’t forget how the person bought into all of the lies. You can somewhat give them a pass and let them join our side, but don’t seek their advice or leadership in the future on anything of importance. They will just blow with the wind.
There is also some nuance to this whole thing. I know (and know of) many people who were bad on COVID at the very start, including some libertarians. Some got their head straight within a couple of months before it had become more acceptable to question the COVID “experts”. As long as they weren’t too blatantly obnoxious during the first few months, it is easy to forgive them and move on.
If someone said in late March that they were not in favor of lockdowns but that they were isolating from others in order to do more research, then it is hard to come down on such a person. It is a matter of humility.
In the case of politicians, I remind people that Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, did issue lockdown orders at the beginning of April 2020. People were told to stay at home unless they were doing something deemed essential. I emailed his office, and I was referring to him as Dictator DeSantis.
Little did I know that he would become one of the courageous people to take a stand against COVID hysteria. The reason I am somewhat forgiving of DeSantis is that he took a stand before any other major politician had done so. South Dakota was the only state that didn’t issue some kind of statewide lockdown or stay-at-home order.
Florida is a major state. DeSantis took a major stand in the summer of 2020. All statewide restrictions were lifted by September 2020. Although DeSantis made a major mistake early on, I am willing to forgive it because he took a courageous stand against the establishment when almost nobody else was doing so. For that reason, I will likely vote for him in the November election for governor.
I do not have a high opinion of Greg Abbott in Texas. He shifted with the wind. He only freed up Texans when it became popular (within conservative circles) to do so. He was not courageous. It is better to have someone like him than some leftist who maintained restrictions for a lot longer, but we have to remember how these people acted when it counted.
I was also reminded of this recently when I watched a recent video of Jesse Watters of Fox News interviewing Dr. Marty Makary, who is a regular on Fox News. If you listen to them now, they sound rather reasonable when discussing COVID and vaccines.
But I won’t forget that Makary was a shill for the vaccines last year. He wasn’t questioning their safety or their efficacy. He was repeating the CDC talking points except he would deviate a little when he talked about natural immunity. He didn’t sound like Fauci, but he wasn’t great on COVID, masks, and vaccines in 2020 and 2021. And this is when it really mattered, as vaccine mandates (some of which are still in place) were being imposed.
I also won’t forget Jesse Watters. I barely ever watch his show, but I remember seeing a segment in 2020. He was interviewing a couple of young women who had been on spring break. Watters was lecturing the young women for partying it up with their friends because they were being irresponsible and could bring the virus home to their parents and grandparents. Watters was so smug and condescending. He was wrong too.
In other words, both of these people were helping to spread the COVID hysteria, along with shilling for the vaccines. Now they are taking on a different tune. They are not leaders. They are not courageous. In fact, by writing this, I am rubbing it in their faces a little bit that they were cowards when it counted. I won’t ever seek their advice or take seriously anything they have to say in the future.
There were some people who got it right from the very beginning. Why not listen to those people? Ron Paul got it right from the start. He never bought into COVID hysteria. In March and April 2020, he was saying that kids should be outside playing football. As with many things, the world should have listened to Ron Paul.