Article by J. Christian Adams in "PJMedia":
Welcome back to history, America, it was wondering where you were.
The coronavirus pandemic has upended most everything we assumed about the future, including the assumption that the Drudge Report would forever be a grounded center-right news aggregator.
Of course, it is not just the United States where things have reverted to a mood from a few centuries ago.
In the town of Ragland, New Zealand, locals erected a sign
at the town line telling outsiders to stay out and stop buying up all
of the town’s flour. The good progressive government currently in power
in New Zealand made sure the sign came down.
This
story is repeating in one form or another all around the world. The
progressive utopia of meatless meat, reusable shopping bags and a world
without firearms has collapsed. Backyard gardens are in. Tapas is out.
In Ragland, instead of thinking globally and acting locally, locals decided to worry about locals.
You
can’t buy seeds now either for those backyard gardens. Leading seed
vendors are sold out of basics like lettuce and tomato seeds. Vermont
has even banned seed sales as nonessential wherever they are on display
in stores.
Vermont doesn’t get it yet either.
Americans are, for
the first time since the Civil War, facing food supply disruptions.
These aren’t war-rationing-style shortages, these are supply
disruptions.
We didn’t expect the future to bring meat and toilet paper shortages.
Welcome
to history, America. Civilization has always hung by a thread. The
Founders of this country knew that, and that’s why they crafted a
constitutional order best suited to nurture domestic tranquility and the
general welfare.
It is also why they included a Second Amendment.
Perhaps
we are appreciating in concrete terms the value of stable homes,
industrious values, and faith. A nation that was abandoning God might
reconsider.
Get your kids and grand-kids The Long Winter
by Laura Ingalls Wilder. They had it worse than your kids do, at least
for now. If you think Zoom school is bad, if you are growing weary of
beans and rice, try heating your freezing house with twisted wheat and
eating grain porridge for every meal.
This
was what befell huge tracts of America just 140 years ago where the
Twins, Brewers, Cubs, and Tigers should be playing right now.
Welcome
to history. We had it so good for a spell. It was a bounty of the
superfluous. Sociology degrees and safe spaces. Preferred pronouns and
Disney cruises. Hipster brunch and guaranteed futures. It was the land
of milk and honey.
Now it’s the land of 33,325 deaths, and climbing.
In Philadelphia this week, a gang of youths took advantage of the mess to attack a man on a SEPTA bus. No word if they were wearing SEPTA-mandated
coronavirus masks. But we do know they picked the wrong target, a man
with a legal concealed-carry firearm who promptly shot them all. Most
were shot in the legs or buttocks, so in a few weeks, after a recovery
paid for by the Medicaid taxpayer, they’ll be in fine shape to sue the
shooter or otherwise blame someone else.
Many public schools have thrown in the towel for the year. Instead of Alice Cooper’s "School's Out For Summer," it’s more like school's out before the last frost.
Fairfax
County schools, purportedly one of the better school systems in
Virginia, tried distance learning and it came crashing down with
students putting images of bongs on Zoom video classes. Fairfax waited
weeks to try distance learning, and when they finally did, people contributed with racial slurs, Hitler salutes and X-rated memes.
I shudder to imagine what the rest of Virginia schools are like if Fairfax County schools are the best in the state.
Speaking
of Virginia, Governor Ralph Northam, best known for either wearing
blackface or a Klan hood to a college party, has imposed an emergency
edict that prevents people from going to church. Ten people cannot
gather in church, but the entire Virginia General Assembly will gather next week in a tent to consider budget matters.
It
seems northeastern Democrat governors are more comfortable issuing
edicts and orders preventing people from earning a living, going to
church or kicking a soccer ball around a park. It almost comes
naturally. But then again, southern governors like Ralph Northam
(D-Dixie Land) also seem perfectly comfortable in his authoritarian
skin.
Let see how much
patience Americans have with these stay-at home-orders. Already in
Michigan, rallies have occurred, with protesters yearning to breathe
free.
For now, Americans
seem ready to wait a few more weeks. But at some point, and that point
is coming soon, the cure is worse than the disease. Economic devastation
ruins lives too. Poverty, despair and economic ruin will cost the
country a lot more than the coronavirus can. When hungry people reach
that point, don’t expect Americans to pay much attention to government
edicts.