Hello Fellow Patriots:
People die. We die in droves every day. With Covid or without Covid, over 3 million people die each year. About half of that total die from heart disease and cancer. Half. Other medical ailments kill another 800,000. And, this was before Covid. Another 250,000 die from a variety of other causes with poisoning at about 76,000, surprisingly, the largest non-medical reason. https://deadorkicking.com/death-statistics/us/per-year/
While we don’t know exactly how many people died of Covid vs. with Covid today; it is becoming commonly understood that there were substantially fewer people who died of heart disease and Cancer during the Covid outbreak than in previous years. Having died with Covid, everyone from some gunshot victims to people who were dying a natural death in Hospice were coded for Covid. Numbers can mean anything you want. Taken from a USA story:
“The way to compare the two is to look at (the number of deaths) over 12 months, preferably the same 12 months,” she told USA TODAY.
At the time the tweet was shared on Jan. 2, there had been 360,888 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. in the nine months since the pandemic was declared a national emergency in mid-March 2020. The U.S. averages about 600,000 cancer deaths per year, so roughly 450,000 in a given nine-month span.
A look back at the first full year of the pandemic yields similar results. The 12 months beginning in mid-March 2020 left about 540,000 Americans dead, nearly equal to the annual average of 600,000 cancer deaths.” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/05/21/fact-check-comparison-between-covid-19-cancer-death-rate-misleading/4991452001/
You can easily see that cancer deaths were down about 10% when they should have been up. Why up? The government has widely reported that many cancer patients did not receive their normal treatment during the Covid Pandemic because they were afraid of getting infected. https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/GO.20.00639 This should have led to excess deaths in the cancer patient community. Official numbers do not reflect this. You could easily extrapolate this to all the other causes of medical mortality where the pattern and reasons are consistent.
We are not naïve. Covid killed many people who would have otherwise lived. But the response to Covid was inappropriately targeted, vastly expensive for most of us, and depressed millions and millions of people who did not know what to believe or what was likely going to happen to them. This was unnecessary and likely led to many deaths as a result of depression, altered and ultimately unhealthy lifestyles, and more.
Immediately before Covid, our country had been on a long road into the pursuit of perfect safety. Covid magnified that concept and led our government to make pronouncements that were untrue on their face but would push people into the desired direction. Masks, social distancing, sneeze guards, constant sanitizing of exposed surfaces, lockdowns, the closing of schools, etc. was based on the false premise that you could stop the spread when you couldn’t. Many of those failed actions are still with us today, which is evidence that government institutions are slow to reverse themselves when science informs them of their folly. Here’s just one example in support: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/world/asia/covid-cleaning.html Feel good actions is the government proving they are doing something that “science supports.”
One more….https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/experts-warn-that-cloth-masks-don-t-work-again-recommend-tests/ar-AAS3Wmn Cloth masks were known not to be effective against airborne virus transmission for a generation. That is one reason why Fauci initially advised against mask-wearing and then reversed himself later on. https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/experts-warn-that-cloth-masks-don-t-work-again-recommend-tests/ar-AAS3Wmn The government had to prove they were in control and on top of the problem. Simply making up actions that you could take to protect yourself ultimately was to mollify the population while more effective ideas and concepts were pursued.
Chapter II
I ended my last piece with an admonishment that each of us needs to make our own independent decisions on how best to protect and live with Covid and to not rely on the government to tell us how to live our lives and how to think. So, let’s talk about that a bit more.
I believe and hope that you believe that America is exceptional. But exactly why is it…exceptional? Is it because of its geolocation in the world? A particularly beneficial climate or arable soil? Is it our mineral deposits or just good old divine providence? America’s detractors will tell you it is our storied history of slavery, greed, and avarice and that America is only what it is today as a consequence of its theft of the world’s wealth and riches. I think you know better; I know that I know better, it’s our people and our system of government. At least our original system of government and its implementation and priorities.
The rest of the world has many, many hardworking people and some benevolent and good governments that mostly let people live their own lives to a point, without interference. In America, we used to admire the individual and his/her drive for success against all odds. In every generation, there have been those that have created industries, made technical breakthroughs, and otherwise enlarged the pie and created wealth out of seemingly thin air. Here are a few names from history, old and new:
- Ben Franklin
- Henry Ford
- John D. Rockefeller
- Andrew Carnegie
- J.P. Morgan
- George Eastman
- Steve Jobs
- W.K. Kellogg
- Este Lauder
- Bill Gates
- Thomas Edison
- Ray Kroc
- Harland Sanders
- Sam Walton
- Aaron Montgomery Ward
- Richard Sears
- Levi Strauss
- P.T. Barnum
- Conrad Hilton
- J.W. Marriott
- Jeff Bezos
- Fred W. Smith
And many more. While they all shared a plethora of common and uncommon qualities, you can boil down everything necessary required for their spectacular success into three essential elements that greatness requires:
- They were indefatigable promoters of their own ideas
- There were relentless and put their ideas, priorities, and needs above everything else
- Good timing
The success of their dimension required an absence of fear. Fear is what keeps all but the few from throwing caution to the wind in the promotion of their singular beliefs in the face of detractors, interim failures, and other roadblocks that we all face, but frequently never conquer.
There is no empirical data that describes how many of us possess the qualities required for greatness. One in a thousand is as good a guess as any. Let’s face it, we can’t all belong to this esteemed list of over-the-top achievers. But, there’s a secondary level of success that is nothing to sneeze at either. There are about 15 million millionaires in this country; about 12 percent of households. Some people inherit their wealth, but the majority earned it in their lifetime. Those millionaires that number in the millions earned it through thrift, building businesses, selling their ideas, or through judicious buying and selling of hard assets. In most cases, these people took a risk. Many lost, but quite a few won, simply by being stubborn and single-minded. Good timing is also essential to success.
What do we teach our children today? We tell them safety is everything. Avoid hurt and stay in an environment that nurtures and protects. “It takes a village” anyone? But, how does the real-world work? To our view, which is based on history and a comparison to other countries, risk equals reward. You won’t make bupkis living in a “safe space” and avoiding the grueling, failure-prone, and indifferent life that is the only guarantee we all receive.
When we teach safety, we teach caution. When we teach too much caution, we teach fear. How do we balance the real opportunities and consequences of life against a society that teaches “better not go down the path those white people plowed because it only leads to unfairness and inequality”? Which in turn leads to the awful lie of implied racism. The next time you are hungry, realize it is the farmer, who demands a return on his investment that ultimately decides if you eat or not. Don’t pay him and you starve. China, the Soviet Union (Russia today), and Cuba among many nations, all need what we produce. They may have sufficient arable land, but it is the profit motive that grows abundant food, not the infamous common good that too many believe should be a First Principle for all.
Greed is good. Not just a movie slogan but a reflection of why so many people work hard and innovate. There have been no successful collectivist organizations. None. They all ultimately fail, be it a Kibbutz in Israel, Venezuela with all its oil riches, or Lenin’s dreams of swamping the non-communist world with goods produced in a worker’s paradise. It never happened and never will.
Greed is to life as fear is to death. Greed creates, fear locks up the mind, body, and soul, and our dreams which sometimes makes it real. Fear is what is taught by our institutions and too many families today. We want our children to be protected and want all of them to grow and prosper, but how?
We can’t guarantee them happiness any more than we can conjure up a genie. You can give your children money and things, provide safe spaces, but can’t give them what it takes to be independent and exceptional. Only through an early inculcation in trying and failing and then getting back on the horse can you learn how to become successful. No magic wand, no wishing, no wanting, no indulgence, and no material gift will ameliorate a poor grounding that only a stable, intact family that encourages our children to risk, fall, and sometimes fail can provide.
The government, some houses of worship, our schools, and yes, our parents have failed too many of our youth. Too many Deltas roam our country today (read Brave New World) and who will never know the pure ecstatic joy of being successful. By overprotecting our children, many have been permanently hobbled. By loving our children without requiring requisite responsibility and effort our children will achieve less than they otherwise would. Being a parent is hard. All the more so because we don’t want our children to be in pain or feel they are not as good as the next person. One of the chief lessons of life is that life is not fair or unfair; it is agnostic.
Prepare your child for a life of exploration, triumph, and sometimes failure. This is the logic of life that cannot be changed no matter what we might like to believe. Nature always triumphs. Teach your child that greed is good when in pursuit of an avocation and charity is good at other times. Teach your child that failure is a friend because it teaches us what to do the next time around. Throw away all those self-help books that teach you that life is situational or that you can keep your child from pain and failure. They are worse than useless drivel, these thoughts, ideas, and admonitions have destroyed a generation.
Finally, get the government off the backs of the people. We have spent trillions on feel-good programs that have, as its greatest accomplishment, the employments of hundreds of thousands of government drones, employees who produce nothing, consume everything and reduce our productive and personal potential. The federal government is too focused on and about power. Our Founders understood that and tried to warn us about it, fought against the accumulation of Federal powers, and tried hard to instill an ethical and righteous God-inspired government that was to be free of individual religious prejudice, not God itself.
How we vote, what we demand of government, and whether we raise our voices when we see wrong, go a long way towards fighting the tendency of government to overreach. That’s at the Federal level. Always keep in mind that you individually are supposed to be supreme at the local government level, be it county, city, or state. Don’t let those in the office run wild as has happened in so many places. Our country was created with an overarching belief in individualism vs. collectivism. Your involvement in local affairs is an important restraint to those in government who by trying to be everything, take everything.
Today, everything hinges on the future of our children. What kind of adults will they be? Will they be fearless, critical-thinking leaders or extensions of Woke political thought? We need anti-frail children to grow into the next towering presence to add to the list I created at the top. Teach the obvious, that no one is responsible for yourself except yourself. All the promises, guarantees, and safety nets will come to naught when the chips are down. Self-Reliance should be everyone’s mantra.
God Bless America
Allan J. Feifer
About the Author
Allan J. Feifer was born in 1956 in Atlanta, GA, to Beverly and Bernard Feifer, a successful American author, and businessman. A lifelong Republican, Allan has always been conservative in his views. In light of recent events, Allan felt compelled to write his new book, “unconventional warfare book,”
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