Posted On: Monday - September 14th 2020 4:39PM MST
In Topics: Websites Pundits Liberty/Libertarianism Kung Flu Stupidity
(Continued directly from the previous post.)
The particular comment by internet mogul Ron Unz that I wanted to comment on was not under the post regarding reporting on China (just making this clear). It was under one of his own articles, this one 31,000 Words Missing from The Atlantic and The New York Times Sunday Magazine w/ Addendum. I just skimmed through that article*, because the comment in question was under it, but I hadn't read it before.
The article, is one in a series of many on one Ron Unz's conspiracy theories. Hey, I don't knock that stuff in general, but this one is nothing but a side distraction to the point about the American Kung Flu response that I want to mention here. His theory, that he's railed about almost since the beginning of this business in March, is that the virus originated in a US lab and was purposefully spread via a sports team that happened to have an event in Wuhan, China back last fall. I'm glad Mr. Unz at least admits to being no expert in virology, but that makes this theory nothing but conjecture based on circumstantial evidence.
In some of his recent articles, including this one, the point is that the US Media (one discussed the Wall Street Journal's take) is ALMOST on the case. They just left off the part Mr. Unz knows about. OK, now anyone's railing on the Lyin' Press is just fine with me. For the life of me, I just don't get why Ron Unz, of all people, had this big faith in the media and self-designated healthcare experts regarding the highly erroneous predictions of the severity of this virus. Now, he seems to have backed off without an apology or explicit correction. It's HIS site, and that's what we bloggers do, right?
Let me now (finally!) paste in the whole comment. It is a reply to commenter JackOH, who from all I've read from him under Steve Sailer, is a pretty mellow, reasonably on-the-ball guy (the inner excerpt is JackOH from before):
The (my-)bolded part is the main problem I have with this thinking. I'll get to that shortly.I’ve read little of Ron’s stuff about the COVID virus, but his repeated use of “crazy”, “stupid”, “rogue”, “incompetent” to describe some of our leadership elites has me thinking of a deeply embittered patronage hack I know who’s driven by revenge, I suppose, for decades of petty humiliations, a strong need to settle scores with his tormentors, real or imagined, and who has no sense of public service in his being. I think he may be the only man I’ve met who ought to somehow be referred for a psychiatric eval to determine fitness for work.Well, I don’t think that’s a very fair appraisal. Frankly, my critical adjectives may be much too mild.
I think the Covid epidemic plus accompanying lockdowns are shaping up to be the greatest disaster suffered by our unfortunate country since the Great Depression, perhaps even since the Civil War.
The Chinese published the genome of the new virus on January 11th, and within a couple of days Germany and various other countries had created test-kits and begun mass-producing and using them to check for outbreaks.
However, our own government refused to use the German kits and decided to have the CDC create their own, which took extra time. Then we discovered that the CDC kits produced were all defective and we had to start from scratch. Therefore, for several weeks we had no means of testing for the virus, and even afterward, test-kits were in extremely short supply. This allowed the virus to spread invisibly for a month or two, leading to many of the later outbreaks, in NY and elsewhere.
Similarly, government officials told people not to wear masks, then later changed their minds.
Now the more conspiratorially-minded people believe our elites deliberately allowed the virus to spread in order to destroy the American economy or reset the stock-market or something. Most Flu Hoaxers believe the government deliberately did those things even though the virus isn’t very dangerous, and that the lockdowns are intended to destroy freedom or something.
I’ve very skeptical of those theories, and think the problem was mostly sheer incompetence. But whether you believe our elites are extremely incompetent or that they’re diabolical, I’d say they deserve a great deal of criticism, don’t you?
• Agree: Godfree Roberts, Wizard of Oz, Derer [Heh, there's old Godfree!]
• Replies: @JackOH
This criticism of "our" government is fine, at first glance. There were all kinds of screw ups, reversals of plans, highly erroneous prediction, and, yes, we have no manufacturing base, so we're bound to suffer when the SHTF (not actually the case this time). On the latter, that is especially a problem that we outsource most of our manufactured products to a country we are on the outs with.
On the first 3 items, though, Ron Unz is missing the point. This is not supposed to be China. If it were 1985 right now, and Americans were told this and that is happening and we need to do this and that, most would be still of the mindset "you try and make me!" You don't have to go back too awful far into the past to get to when Americans weren't such obedient bootlickers of government and the "experts". The "emergency" powers of the Governors would not have been meekly complied with years ago. Who cares if some US Government experts in this or that try to put the scare in us? It's the Americans like Ron Unz here getting suckered by all that BS that were and still are the problem.
On to the bolded section now: That's rich, Ron Unz getting on others for being conspiratorial-minded. Mr. Unz is the guy with the conspiracy theory about the US spreading the virus to China first, never mind that I guess "we" (the Deep State) didn't consider that viruses can go both ways across the ocean.
If you've read here for a while, you will know that I don't think that the Chinese purposefully spread the Kung Flu virus. (I sure wouldn't rule it completely out, though.) That's not what Mr. Unz claims we think this time, though. Most of us whom Ron Unz calls "hoaxers" don't think or spend much time thinking about whether the US Government planned this out either. That's missing the damn point entirely. It's the RESPONSE, stupid! (Yes, directed at high IQ Ron Unz.)
The response to what people with some perspective understand is another virus out of the Orient, maybe a nastier one in some ways, but just one of these every-decade-average phenomena, is what we've got a real problem with. Was the response planned out to fuck over the small businessmen and average American working stiff? Well, you couldn't have planned that any better, but that's a conspiracy theory that I'm not down with, as of yet. As Peak Stupidity has written many times, and not just about this particular Infotainment Panic-fest, it's likely just the same stupid and sometimes evil people in the Lyin' Press, governments, and other institutions being on the same page with their thinking.
Here's the real arrogant stupidity coming at ya': "... and that the lockdowns are intended to destroy freedom or something." Yeah, "or something". Uhhh, yeah, telling people they must stay in a specified location, telling them whether they can have their businesses open or not, how far apart they must stay from each other, and that they must wear diapers on their faces per un-democratic government edict is most certainly about freedom. You'd basically have to be some kind of high-IQ moron to believe otherwise. Freedom of movement, freedom to transact, ... hell, these are the basics even before you get to free speech, freedom of association and all the rest.
Well, the guy never said he was a Constitutionalist.
Most of us "hoaxers" aren't that concerned with where the COVID-19 virus came from and how it spread. That's because we have the perspective that told us back in March that this was not the Big Deal it was being made out to be. We are concerned, OK, not concerned, but EXTREMELY PISSED, that this minor disease is being used to LOCKDOWN the country, throw it into depression (a lot earlier than we were gonna be ready for), and turn Americans into silly-looking mask-wearing retards! Get it straight, Ron Unz!
* BTW, this article looks very interesting and doesn't concentrate solely on Mr. Unz's COVID-Conspiracy theory.
Comments:
Moderator
Friday - September 18th 2020 9:33PM MST
PS: Thank you, Adam. I loaded it up and will read the Taki column in the morning.
Adam Smith
Friday - September 18th 2020 9:15AM MST
PS: Kinda off topic, sorta...
https://www.takimag.com/article/ron-unz-gropes-the-elephant/
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https://www.takimag.com/article/ron-unz-gropes-the-elephant/
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Moderator
Tuesday - September 15th 2020 6:45PM MST
PS: Robert, I waver between thinking of Ron Unz as a character and a "piece of work". The former is mostly a term of endearment, the latter is not so much.
Robert
Monday - September 14th 2020 11:19PM MST
PS: My impression is that people who are not normal; are, well, not normal.