I am sure the headline only readers will tear me apart, but that’s part of the deal. I dont just write headlines, and if that’s all you read, it doesn’t really matter what I write anyway. That being said I will take my chances. Remember twenty years ago? I do very much so. We had a national tragedy, 9/11. One of the things I remember most about that time was how we as a country set aside our differences, set aside our politics, and focused on unity and coming together as a country to persevere. That was truly beautiful, America The Beautiful. Fast forward twenty years and here we are on the cusp of another national tragedy, well a world tragedy, the Coronavirus. By now I am sure you are all sick of hearing about it or reading about it. But I would ask how have we responded? Has it been beautiful? Have we come together as a nation, unified to fight the pandemic? No, not at all. What we have done is we have taken our cues from our preferred media outlets and are completely divided over what to do. We are tearing each other down, fighting each other, and fighting over toilet paper. Our response to this has been nothing short of ugly, extremely ugly. As conspiracy theories run a muck, and everyone suddenly becoming an infectious disease expert, here we are looking like fools in front of the world as we argue over percentage basis points of mortality rates. Today I was ridiculed for quoting the world leading expert on infectious disease during a discussion of mortality rate. I was called a leftist idiot who gets all my information from fake news media. I was further discarded when my response was that not only am I not a leftist, but that i get my information from the CDC and the World Health Organization. “Lies! All lies I tell you!” How did we get here? I know people love their pundits, but are we really going to rely on Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity for facts on a pandemic outbreak and the potential consequences? Can we not have a civil discussion about what is the right and wrong thing to do in this situation? I’ve also heard this, “Well I am not in the age group that dies so why should it affect me?” This general train of thought has come from many people, and it astonishes me. Are we not to care about those who are elderly or may have immunity problems anymore? Are we to just discard them and not make any sacrifice for those people who spent their lives sacrificing for the younger generations? Do you know who’s in that group? Grandmas and Grandpas, the people who raised a lot of us! What about the Vietnam Veterans? They are all in the high risk group, are we saying to hell with them now? When they may be in the hour of need? The willingness to spread misinformation about a deadly disease is mind boggling. Did you see the NBA player intentionally touching things to spread it? Because he heard it was harmless, just a common cold….wtf people. “Well I saw a video of someone who had it and they said the symptoms weren’t bad at all, they said it was just like a cold.” Said another online genius. I chose not to reply, I wanted to say “Dead people don’t make videos Einstein”, but I restrained myself. Here’s another good one, “Does anybody even know anybody that has had it? I didn’t think so!” Well, give it a couple of weeks dipshit and I am sure you will know a few, will that make you happy? The point is as you have already figured out, right now we are being very ugly during a time we shouldn’t be, and for what? He who thinks he has won a political argument has neither won, or gained an ounce of knowledge. That’s my take anyway. Right now we are America The Not So Beautiful….
Matt Randolph
Matthew's Blog 