COVID POLICE STATE -- PART II

              SR's previous post outlined our initial resistance  to the patently disproportionate and unreasoned government response to the COVID virus.  With so many atrocities and misjudgments littering the landscape with economic and social disaster, it is impractical to encapsulate all objections and rebuttals to this governmental, political, and media malfeasance in a single blog-post.  Consequently, we will attempt to address this multiplicity of COVID issues seriatim, highlighting those items that seem most critical as we descend into what we hope is a temporary totalitarian nightmare.

                                                       

           The Heroes of World War II Weren't into Social Distancing

                Dr. Fauci's Concession that COVID is like Seasonal Flu.  COVID skeptics like SR have heretofore regarded the President's COVID adviser and resident expert Dr. Anthony Fauci as rather alarmist and pessimistic, at least in comparison to the President's sound emphasis that "the cure may be worse than the disease."  Now, however, Dr. Fauci has apparently joined those of us who have stressed that the coronavirus is similar in severity to the seasonal flu.  In an article published in the respected New England Journal of Medicine on March 26, Dr. Fauci and two reputable co-authors state as follows (emphasis added): 

                    "[T]he currently reported case fatality rate [for COVID-19] is approximately 2%.  In another article in the Journal, Guan et al. report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of symptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively."

Fauci et al, New England Journal of Medicine, March 26, 2020.

                This strengthens the view that the most extreme government measures employed against COVID-19 are based upon hysteria rather than reason.  Since the seasonal flu has never generated anything resembling the coercive measures presently employed against COVID-19, the government's wildly extreme reaction to the latter appears to be patently disproportionate.

                ZERO COVID deaths in Japan on March 26, 2020 (despite rejecting extreme measures).  Japan was originally identified as a prime candidate for very severe COVID-19 impact, owing in part to the arrival of large numbers of infected passengers from the heavily infected cruise ship, Diamond Princess.  Notwithstanding this concern, Japan has not heretofore resorted to the type of extreme coercive restraints on freedom that have been followed in the U.S. and elsewhere (Japan did close its schools, but is preparing to re-open them now).  Despite its more temperate approach to quarantine and social distancing mandates, Japan has experienced only a modest number of COVID cases and, in several recent days, apparently zero deaths.  According to the most recently posted data, Japan has experienced 1,693 total COVID cases, and 52 total deaths (compared to, e.g., about 17,000 cases and 1028 deaths in the smaller-populated UK).  Japan has managed this relatively successful containment even though it is among the most densely populated nations in the world, and population density is a primary factor for COVID contagion and mortality.  Japan's experience indicates that the harsh police state measures adapted in many U.S. states and cities are not necessary for a reasonable COVID containment policy.

                Cuomo and the Fraudulent Death Card.  The COVID-Control extremists flatly reject the application of cost-benefit analysis to the coercive, totalitarian measures they impose (like closing schools and businesses and imposing obscene "shelter in place" dictates) to purportedly control the spread of the coronavirus.  They are fully prepared to ruin the nation's economy and quality of life if the ruination will prevent the death of a single 80-year-old dotard from COVID-19 (even though he is apt to die from something else next year).  Lest any reader consider this insensitive, SR is himself 75-years old, and fully prepared to waive any claim to the government's solicitous "protection." 

                New York's obnoxious hereditary governor, Andrew Cuomo, expressed that irrational viewpoint as follows in his brainless dismissal of any economic objections to oppressive COVID coercion (from Reason, March 24, 2020):

                "We're not going to put a dollar figure on human life," said Cuomo (D), who last Friday announced that "we're all in quarantine now" while ordering all "nonessential" businesses to close. The goal, he explained, is to "save lives, period, whatever it costs."  In other words, Cuomo declares that cost/benefit analysis is inapplicable to the adoption of any policy that purports to minimize loss of life.

                Continuing his maudlin, melodramatic demagogy, Cuomo intoned:  "My mother is not expendable, and your mother is not expendable, and our brothers and sisters are not expendable," Cuomo said when asked about "conservatives" who have noted the heavy burdens imposed by sweeping restrictions on movement, business operations, and work. "And we're not going to accept a premise that human life is disposable." 

                With rhetorical violins droning in the background, Cuomo portrayed rational cost considerations in the following melodramatic vein:  "We'll just sacrifice old people; they're old people anyway. And the old get left behind….We're going to move on, and if you can't keep up, well, you just fall by the wayside of life." He described the consideration of the economic and social costs of extreme COVID containment measures  as "some modern, Darwinian theory of natural selection." 

                Cuomo is, plainly put, a mawkish, melodramatic jackass.  We are lucky he was nowhere near the controls when Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower made the decisions which won World War II, but at the known cost of untold legions of lives.  Cuomo would have cancelled D-Day, in order to "save lives, period, whatever it costs."

                As one of the "old people" who Cuomo purported to protect, my response to him is:  "Shove it, you irrational jackass, and speak for yourself.  Elderly people with any brains and any guts do not expect the younger generation to forfeit their claim to economic, social, educational, and recreational opportunities merely to reduce our risk of catching, and possibly succumbing to, the COVID virus." 

              There are many times when some unspecified loss of life, or more accurately the risk of such, is an inescapable cost of achieving the greater good, and this is one of them.  In the long run, millions of lives will be ruined and even lost due to the obvious adverse consequences of COVID coercion and quarantine.  Further, millions of youngsters have now forfeited the most momentous experiences of their young lives due to the shortsighted stupidity of their elders in cancelling the concluding months of an academic year – high school or college.

                The shutdown of businesses, commerce, travel, athletics, and ordinary economic activity in the name of COVID Containment has already reduced to ruin an economy that was booming on all fronts and obliterated the investments of millions of ordinary Americans.  Equally, the shutting of schools and the attendant confinement of millions of healthy, energetic youngsters to their homes is a social, recreational, educational, and morale disaster of immeasurable dimensions. 

                Already, literally millions of American youngsters have been deprived of that once in a lifetime opportunity to compete as a senior in the basketball, lacrosse, track, swimming, or baseball championships or playoffs for which they have spent years in preparation. They will never recover this golden opportunity of their youth.  And all because of the government's, the media's, and the politicians' hysterical overreaction to a so-called virus epidemic that, with each day, resembles ever more closely the seasonal flu that is noticed by no one but the vaccination makers.

                The Media and the Left Root for the Virus and Resist a Cure.  The media and political left's furious resistance to the prospect of a readily available cure for COVID-19 removes any doubt that they view this crisis as their supreme opportunity to defeat President Trump and seize power in a leftist coup.

                The President has properly called attention to the prospect that chloroquine, or hydroxychloroquine, may prove an effective cure to COVID-19.  Since the President's duly qualified statements,  physicians and scientists in China, Norway, Australia, France, Italy and elsewhere have confirmed tests and treatments demonstrating the efficacy of chloroquine (especially in combination with the well-known anti-cold Z-pac).  

                 With each day, the evidence that chloroquine is a good cure for COVID-19 becomes more persuasive.  And the media and political left's adamant and steadfast rejection of this stunningly positive development conclusively confirms what SR and others have recognized all along – the political left, the democrats, and their media allies resolutely reject the prospect that the COVID crisis will be reduced, contained, or resolved  before the presidential election in November.

                The media and political left are actively rooting against the success of the chloroquine cure because they want the COVID crisis to persist, undermine the economy, and assure the defeat of President Trump next November.  On this issue in particular, they have conclusively proven themselves to be the enemies of the people.

AMERICA'S DYSTOPIAN COVID POLICE STATE: PART I

               SR has heretofore refrained from posting on the ubiquitous coronavirus or COVID-19 (hereafter CV19) crisis, and the utterly unprecedented police state excesses imposed in its name.  Our reticence was not rooted in lack of interest or ideas on the subject, but rather on the reverse:  The moment one appalling idiocy of the CV19 gestapo drove us to the keyboard in furious outrage, it would immediately be superseded by a still more incredible totalitarian atrocity that rendered the previous topic of subordinate urgency. 

                So much COVID Lunacy, and so little time.

 Assembly for Declaration of Independence:  Illegal Gathering under COVID Rules

                For example, yesterday's news was that the crass and clueless Governor of Virginia had extended the temporary closure of the State's public schools to at least a complete closure for the entire academic year.  He imposed this ruthless totalitarian dictat even though there was not the least justification for such a premature announcement at this time, other than to engage in the crude one-upsmanship of COVID extremism that the nation's governors are currently playing. 

                The reported 14 CV19-caused deaths in Virginia barely approaches the annual toll of the ordinary seasonal flu (or one month's murders in Baltimore), yet the notion of closing the schools based on the seasonal flu would surely have been met with unanimous and well-deserved popular derision.  Yet relegating Virginia's youngsters to long months of educational, recreational, athletic, and social deprivation in order to reduce the potential CVD risks for aged retirees (like me) – who are already "playing with house money" anyway --  is accepted by today's feckless sheeple without a murmur of dissent.  

               The concept of cost-benefit analysis  is apparently beyond the ken of today's nanny-state tyrants, let alone their cowering constituents.  The crude COVID-based closure of the schools now sets the precedent for similar draconian measures in the future, justified by similar threats, like the recurring seasonal flu itself.  When it is pointed out next year that the seasonal flu is apt to cause illness and deaths comparable to this years corona virus, how will the government justify avoiding the kind of extreme measures it has adopted against COVID-19?

                But today we learned of a bizarre new expansion of the COVID Police State that not even George Orwell, in his wildest and darkest imaginings, would have contemplated.  The Mayor of Chicago (one Lori Lightfoot) -- who lacks the cognitive powers to manage a neighborhood garage sale let alone the welfare of the nation's third largest city -- has darkly declared that lengthy walks, runs, or bike rides are now criminal acts under the COVID Regime, and perpetrators are subject to citations, fines, and even arrest by the Stassi that once passed for the Chicago Police.  Since this dangerous mayor's crude declarations do not require embellishment to portray their grotesque excess, let them speak for themselves (foxnews.com, March 26, 2020; emphasis added):

                “Be smart,” Lightfoot said Wednesday, according to  CBS Chicago. “Not only will our police be deployed to shut them down if you are not abiding by these orders, we will be forced to shut down the parks and lakefront.”

                Lightfoot went on to announce that spending long periods of time outside or in playgrounds is not allowed.

                “You cannot go on long bike rides. Playgrounds are shut down,” she said. “You must abide by the order. Outside is for a brief respite, not for 5Ks.”

                She added: “I can’t emphasize enough that we abide [by] the rules.”

                "This is an order that’s enforceable by law," she reportedly said. "We’re going to give you an admonition. And if you don’t turn right away and head home then you’re going to get a citation.   And if worse, yeah, we will take you into custody."

                She added: "I hope that it doesn’t come to that, I hope that I don’t have to shut down the lake front, shut down all the parks, but I will."

  

                If this police state madness does not drive the reader to furious resistance to the COVID madness, it is hard to imagine what will.  A crude, uncultured, power-mad mayor of a dysfunctional American city dictates to American citizens that they may not take a hike, run, or bike ride unless they restrict it to an approved brevity that is not specified – in short, the police have full leeway to arrest any walker, runner, or cyclist at their unfettered discretion.  

                Welcome to the totalitarian dystopia of COVID America.  Where venturing outside your home is limited to the "brief respite" allowed by the government.

                And the same civil libertarians who howl in outrage at the slightest government interference with the violent protests of Antifa anarchists are now grotesquely silent in the face of the most comprehensive police state restraints on the rights of ordinary citizens since the founding of the Republic.

                Merely for starters, the widely adopted and spreading state COVID-based prohibitions of gatherings in excess of ten people blatantly and indisputably violate the Constitution's prohibition of any infringement of "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."  U.S. Const., Amend I.  

                In COVID America, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and the rest could not legally have gathered in Philadelphia to declare independence.

                This is the opening salvo in Splashing Rocks' protest against the extreme Police State measures that have been adopted by federal, state, and local governments in grotesque overreaction to the COVID-19 virus -- a passing disease that is little more than a variant of the seasonal flu in terms of its threat to the public health.  In order to "get the ball rolling," SR will end this post here, but will enumerate in subsequent posts the totalitarian atrocities and stupidities that have been imposed – and, worse yet, docilely accepted by a cowed and emasculated citizenry.

ROGER MARIS, 1961, AND THE GAPING HOLE IN THE HALL OF FAME

           The summer of 1961 was arguably the most riveting and exciting season in baseball history.

            That was the year when the incomparable New York Yankee outfield duo of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris staged a season-long duel in pursuit of baseball's most illustrious and sacrosanct record:  Babe Ruth's legendary 60 home run standard, set in 1927.

            I well remember rushing to the newsstand each morning that summer to get the daily paper and check the sports page to see whether Maris, Mantle, or both had homered the day before.  Needless to say, there were no sports websites in 1961, and during the summers back then active teenage boys like me (I was 16 at the time) had little time or inclination to find what little TV sports news there might have been.  So I bought more newspapers that summer than I ever did in my life – just to keep track of Mantle and Maris.  Millions of American youngsters (and adults) did likewise.  It was a special and unique season.

            As the season progressed, and the two Yankee superstars drew nearer and nearer to Ruth's record, reports of their home run progress even moved from the sports page to the front page in some papers.  As they say about the Masters golf tournament today, it was "a season like no other."  Even inveterate Yankee-haters followed the daily heroics of the M&M Boys as they pursued the Immortal Babe.

                                                                 

                     Maris and Mantle:  The Home Run Heroes of 1961

            But there was also something of a dark element to the Great Race for Ruth's record.  For unfathomable reasons, much of the sports media, and many fans as well, somehow resented Roger Maris's role in this heroic home run derby.  He was a relative newcomer to the Yankees (he had only joined them from Kansas City A's in 1960) and was viewed by many Yank fans as something of an interloper.  Mickey Mantle, on the other hand, was already a well-established and well-beloved pin-stripe icon, with an appealing, "aw shucks" personality.  Mantle was the decided favorite of most fans and reporters to break Ruth's record – if anyone did, that is.

            Maris, on the other hand, was a painfully shy and quiet North Dakotan who went about his baseball business with dedication and determination, but little charm or charisma.  In today's media environment, he would be the star who somehow never gets the endorsements.  He had won the American League MVP award just the year before (he won it again in 1961), but that somehow seemed to be quickly forgotten.  If any star ever needed a shrewd PR agent, it was Roger Maris.  But he was not the type to care about such frivolity. 

            In 1961, the MLB season had been expanded from 154 games (as it had been in Ruth's era) to 162.  Consequently, baseball traditionalists and other crank sportswriters objected that if Ruth's record were not broken before the 155^th game of the season, it would be somehow illegitimate.  Indeed, many traditionalists resented both Mantle's and Maris's challenge to Ruth's record no matter how it was done.  

            Of course, the advantage of the slightly longer season was probably offset by the more daunting challenge of modern pitching, especially the factor of facing well-rested relievers, rather than arm-tired starters, in the late innings of a game.  Another challenge to the modern sluggers was the added visual difficulty of hitting in night games.  But taking everything into account, it is fair to say that neither Ruth's era nor Maris and Mantle's enjoyed a decided advantage.  In short, the challenge to Ruth's great record in 1961 was a fair one (unlike the later steroid-enhanced home-run records of Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds).

            As the season drew to a close, Maris gradually drew away from Mantle in the home run race.  Mantle's pursuit of the record had been handicapped by a late season hip infection, leaving Maris effectively in sole pursuit of the Babe (Mantle ended up with a still remarkable 54 homers). 

            As Maris came closer and closer to the record with each pressure-packed homer – 55, then 56, then 57, and so on -- the relentless daily focus on his progress expanded from sports reporters to the general media.  Reporters continually surrounded him, demanding interviews.  The daily stress became so intense that Maris reportedly started to shed hair in clumps – which the closely crewcut North Dakotan could ill afford.

            Notwithstanding the pressure, Maris continued to pile up the homers and the RBI's (he led the American League in both categories that year) and led the Yankees to another AL Championship and subsequent World Series victory.  Even aside from this home run record, it was an extraordinary season by any standard.

                                                          

           Even the President shared in the season's excitement:  Maris signing a baseball for JFK at the White House.

            On the last day of the season, October 1, 1961, under unimaginable pressure and hostile scrutiny, Maris cracked his 61^st homer of the season -- a trademark rocket to the right field stands against the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.  He had broken baseball's most illustrious and revered record – and many embittered die-hard reporters and myopic bystanders would never forgive him for his fabulous achievement. 

            But millions of kids like me (and grown up kids as well) broke out into euphoric cheers as we listened to the announcer's call of No. 61 on our scratchy radios.  Against all odds and opposition, Roger Maris had broken baseball's most illustrious record.  It was a truly iconic moment in American sports history, as captured on the front page of the New York Mirror's Souvenir "Home-Run Edition" (reproduced below).

                                                   

                             How many Hall-of-Famers made a moment like this?

            Despite the media naysayers, Maris was duly recognized in 1961 not only for his immortal record but for an extraordinary overall season by any standard.  He was awarded his second consecutive American League MVP award and, beyond that, he was honored with the Hickock Belt as the top professional athlete of the year.  For that one great season, no one towered over the American sports scene like Roger Maris.

            The remainder of Maris's relatively short career was somewhat anti-climactic, at least for the great slugger who had broken baseball's greatest record.  Nonetheless, he earned World Series rings with the Yankees in 1961 and 1962, and again with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1967.  His star performance for the Cards in their '67 Series victory (where he hit .385 and had 7 RBI's) is rarely remembered, mainly because it was so starkly overshadowed by his exploits as a Yankee Slugger.  

            Despite what could fairly be considered the greatest single-season exploit in baseball history – achieved without the aid of artificial stimulants and in the face of relentless media hostility – Roger Maris remains excluded from MLB's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  This is a gross travesty, and should be rectified by the HOF's Era Committee by proposing Maris's well-deserved, if belated, admission.

           

            The only plausible justification for Roger Maris's continued exclusion from the HOF is the relative brevity of his career and, particularly, his career as a top-flight star.  But that lame objection is forcefully overwhelmed not only by the singular and historical nature of his remarkable 1961 season, but also by the extremely great overall achievements of his peak years:  Two MVP awards; three World Series Championship Rings; seven times selected for the All-Star game; two-time AL RBI leader; and Gold Glove award for 1960.  Roger Maris, simply speaking, was a great all-around player – and a winner to boot.  

            Moreover, the singularity of Roger Maris's home run record in 1961 is that it still stands today as the American League home run record.  Think of that.  Babe Ruth's immortal record had stood for an impressive 34 years when Maris broke it; yet Maris's AL record still stands today, after 59 years!

            Career longevity and career statistical landmarks (like 400 homers, 2,500 hits, or a lifetime .300 batting average) are surely legitimate criteria for the Hall of Fame, but they are not the sine qua non.  An iconic, illustrious feat such as Maris's home run record, coupled with the genuine greatness of his peak seasons and his Three-Ring record as an indisputable winner, more than offset the fact that this great player's career was only about 11 years long.

            The continued exclusion of Roger Maris from the Hall of Fame is an inexcusable embarrassment to that otherwise admirable institution.  It is based on myopic, unreasonable, and biased mindsets that have long since outlived any justification.  The saturnine North Dakotan, who generated what was probably the most riveting and fascinating season in baseball history, should be admitted to Cooperstown at the next opportunity.