I am stunned by the indifference to basic liberty. How willing millions of people have been to go inside and stay inside when ordered, and to do everything they’re told, indefinitely into the future, without any questions. I have been worried for decades about this, but even in my worst projections I could not have imagined how indifferent and ignorant so many had become. About basic economics, common sense, elementary coping with emotions, to say nothing of more advanced critical thinking. Hopefully I am wrong. I look daily for the evidence.
“Apathy” definition: lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.
Manifestations of apathy in America right now:
“Well, they’re saying we can’t go back out in the world yet. I guess if they say that, it’s true.”
“I better get my stimulus check and unemployment. Oh, I got them. Well, I guess I don’t have to rush back to work. Doesn’t matter too much to me, either way. I kind of like staying at home and not having to worry about work concerns. And the government will pay me.”
“I don’t know why we were shut down in the first place. But there must be a good reason. They wouldn’t have shut everything down if they didn’t know what they were doing.”
Who are “they” anyway?
Apathy is the consequence of many things. One major thing that apathy is a consequence of: a lack of CRITICAL, OBJECTIVE THINKING.
Critical, objective thinking permits you to identify the facts of reality around you, and to form independent, first-handed conclusions about those facts. You will consider the opinions of experts who honestly report facts and draw conclusions that make sense about all RELEVANT facts. But you don’t accept any conclusions if they don’t connect as LOGICAL and FACTUAL in your own mind, first and foremost. And you’re wary of anyone who either lies, or leaves out significant facts, in order to rig their biased conclusions (the same thing as lying.)
Profit-making companies generally have an interest. They want to make money. While this doesn’t make them automatically and always bad or wrong, it doesn’t make them automatically and always right or good, either. We all know that.
It’s the same with government — federal or local. Just because someone is in the government doesn’t make them automatically bad or wrong. But it doesn’t make them automatically right or good either. They can be biased not just by money (“follow the money”); they can also be biased by a narcissistic drive for power and control. In case you haven’t noticed, a lot of people with that personality profile are drawn to government.
You take your car to a car mechanic, because the car mechanic knows more about the car than you do. That’s valid. But you don’t uncritically accept everything the car mechanic says, simply because he’s a car mechanic. And if the car mechanic told you, “You can’t drive your car for six months. There are toxic fumes coming out of the engine. You’ll have to pay $50,000 to get it repaired. And then hopefully in six months you could drive it again.” If you DID accept this blindly, without even getting a second opinion, then you probably never even made it far enough to own a car.
There are many less obvious, though still questionable or contradictory things any expert could tell you. Even an honest, intelligent and well-meaning one. That’s why you need first-handed, critical and objective thinking. Without critical and objective thinking, you will flounder and eventually perish.
Many experts in immunology tell us that lockdowns are a bad thing, healthwise, because we won’t build up “herd immunity”, and we’ll in fact become MORE vulnerable, not less, to this virus as time goes by. Other experts say the opposite. The point is: Credible experts are telling us different things. That usually means even the experts are not certain. That means science has not reached a point of certainty yet. Reasonable experts therefore disagree. That means we cannot place all our trust in any one school of thought. We have to find another alternative.
Viruses — normal colds and flu — are still with us, even in an era where we can successfully treat heart disease and cancer as never before. So it stands to reason that a weird and freakish virus will be even harder to cure, since we can’t even cure the normal flu.
Right now, we have all our trust in basically one medical authority. That’s Dr. Fauci. We only listen to him, and subordinate doctors (all government employees) of whom he approves. And, even worse, we’re also placing ALL of our trust in the integrity and honesty of most of our state governors. The vast majority of them are career politicians. How credible does that seem? Do you really need a Ph.D. in immunology or anything else to recognize there just MIGHT be a little bit of a problem with what we’re doing?
I am frightened for our society. An apathetic people will fall. And will fall quickly. It’s actually happening. I hope we start seeing a lot less apathy and a lot more healthy anger, energy, initiative and willingness to take SOME risks. And soon.
Otherwise, we’re done. And it won’t even all be the government’s fault. It will be our own.
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