Why Christians Must Be to Loyal to Truth, Not Political Party or Brand

I will grant that Masks possibly are helpful, though that is not proven. Could be a MASQUERADE. Given the size of the Covid 19 Virus, most masks will not stop it. It’s like stopping mosquitoes with a wire fence. I think there is anecdotal evidence that Hydroxy with zinc is a possible protector. The difference is that some state governments mandate one (masks) and resist the other.

Yes. Masquerade. It’s all a plot. The commies are involved, somehow. Along with Soros. Bill Gates is evil. The President rules, ‘cuz the Supreme Court.

‘Merica.

Turn in your hymnals to #358, and let’s sing “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” First, keep your finger on #212, “America the Beautiful.” Let’s stand, as we sing praises to the Lord.

Interesting. This issue seems to bring out of the woodwork those who believe either that government does nothing with an evil motive, or that government always has an evil motive.

Personally, I belong to neither group. I don’t think government is always “out to get me.” However, I also think that if you uncritically believe everything representatives of the government are telling you, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.

I myself have been in government service for 16 years; in various management roles for 14 of these. I have never done anything with evil motives in my capacity. Nor do most government employees. Distinguish between politicians and “the government,” because they are quite different. Also distinguish between local, state and Federal when you refer to “the government.”

When you refer to “the government” concocting a masquerade, know you’re impugning the integrity of countless dedicated public health officials (both civil service and represented) at city, county, state and Federal levels. The hatred of the political class leads otherwise careful people to slander an entire cadre of government employees in an inappropriate way.

There’s a lot of careless talk and imputation of evil motives by people who have little to no idea how “the government” actually works. I can relate countless examples of this.

Tyler, I used the term “government” generally to refer to any government, local, state, or federal. And I would agree with you that it’s not the institution itself, at whatever level, that is the problem. Government is made up of individuals like yourself and like my dad, who served in the Army for > 20 years, and also civil service until retirement age. But individuals can indeed act in an evil fashion or in bad faith, even if many are trying to do their best. And individuals can have an agenda that runs counter to the overall goals of a good government.

The reason I bring out “government” in contrast to just individuals is this — governments were instituted by God and implemented by people to have authority. When this authority is misused, whether to act in bad faith (like perhaps the cop in the George Floyd case — case still to be tried) or to spread misinformation, it’s more damaging than when it comes from say, a celebrity or other figure acknowledged to have some amount of influence in society, because it comes from an office of authority. Humanity has, at least at various times in the past, tended to put trust in our leaders, and to have respect for the authority they exercise. Many in current leadership, including in my state government, have shown that our trust is, at least to some extent, misplaced, and they’ll say anything to either stay in power or to promote a particular agenda that is not a legitimate goal of the office for which they are granted authority.

So to call out government is not to say that it’s everyone involved that is the problem. It may, in fact, be just a small percentage and probably is. Many, like you or my father, are just trying to do the best they can to act in good faith. However, those individuals acting poorly need to be held accountable for bringing down trust in government in general. It’s getting to be so bad these days that whenever I hear a speech, whether from Trump, Pelosi, McConnell, or my state governor, I tend to mostly misbelieve any new information I hear until I can verify it from a number of sources. I’m sure the people working behind the scenes are (mostly) doing the best they can. But they are not the part of government that most people see.

As an example, take the Roman empire. When Christians discuss corrupt governments, we often refer to Rome, since it was in power at the time the NT was written. We often refer to the Caesars to show just how corrupt that government was. But we also know of at least one Christian most likely working in the Roman government mentioned in scripture. There were probably many like him, just trying to do a good job under the circumstances. That doesn’t change our view of the Roman government as a whole, and we can judge our own modern governments in the same way, without implicating every individual as corrupt.

You are the CDC Director, or a State Health Dept Director, something like that. You have a novel virus on the loose infecting millions of people. Hundreds of thousands get seriously ill from, needing hospitalization to survive. 140,000 have died from its impact (please don’t make the silly argument of “died from” vs. “died with”). In a few months, you KNOW the health system will be maxed out with the annual influenza cases, let alone the impact from this new thing. What do you do?

Yep. That’s what I thought.

[Mark_Smith]

Yep. That’s what I thought.

Were you asking me?

First, pretty much everyone in the U.S. got behind the whole “flatten the curve” project. It was so successful, and the curve was flattened so much that most hospitals are losing money and the state they are in is the opposite of being overrun. Take Duke University Hospital, one I can tell you about because it’s close to me, and I know people that work there and have discussed with them their working conditions. They have had whole floors shut down for lack of use, furloughed a number of employees, and the number of Covid patients they have had has not even come close to overrunning the hospital, let alone the ICUs. And this is a world-class facility, one of the best in the U.S. and certainly in the state of N.C., so they would naturally get any patients that are close by. I believe the loss figure I’ve heard is on the order of $200,000,000 from not having patients rather than having too many.

You’ve also read about the construction of massive field hospitals that were never used, and Navy hospital ships that had to serve very few cases of any kind. I suspect that there may have been some hospitals that were close to maxed out on Covid patients, but there certainly haven’t been many.

(Regarding death with Covid vs. death from Covid, I agree that the difference is not large enough to change considerations being sought by government officials trying to handle the pandemic, but it’s hardly a silly or unimportant question. I recently read about a driver who died in a motorcycle accident being counted as a Covid death because he tested positive. Were they trying to say his accident was caused by too much coughing or not being able to breathe? I’m sorry, but correct counts matter. And the fact that cases of recovery have not been as strictly counted as those that have resulted in death has also skewed the numbers.)

However, now that “flatten the curve” has worked well, it’s no longer about overrunning our heath system. Now, it’s all about keeping everything shutdown until there are no more cases or it’s “completely safe” to come out. All this is doing is delaying the inevitable, as even a vaccine that works 100% is considered to be somewhat unlikely, and that any resulting vaccines will be more like flu vaccines — many different ones will be necessary, and none will stop all varieties. The only thing that will help is herd immunity, and the policies currently in place are not getting us there. What people are now realizing is that the officials have no endgame in sight. They hope case numbers go down, but the virus is now out there, and letting millions of people get back to their daily lives will inevitably cause counts to go up again. Making it go slow will only prolong the agony. Eventually, they are going to have to bite the bullet, realize that there is no such thing as absolute safety and that life itself is a risk, and allow things to go more or less back to normal. There will be some losses of course, but society will go on, and Covid will become just one of many diseases that are no longer the problem they once were.

Nothing to see here.

If you prefer the lockdown approach to the approaches taken in South Dakota or Sweden, that’s fine. I just happen to think those governments did a better job with this than most of the rest.

Guess we agree to disagree, or at least disagree to agree.

[Aaron Blumer]

Robert, you’re not listening to what I’m actually claiming, much less engaging the arguments.

I’m not only listening to what you are actually claiming, I’m quoting it. You’re the one who is twisting word meanings and moving goalposts. I’m holding you to account for the actual exact words you used in making that false claim. If you meant something else, you should have said something else. It’s you who is not engaging the argument. And it’s you who is lying.

I’d have a lot more respect for you if you would simply admit that what you said was wrong. Because it was. Period. And your false appeal to authority is telling. You were trying to so hard to bolster an untenable position that you claimed to have seen something (actually multiple somethings, “tests” per your words) that does not and cannot exist. You weren’t content with citing general studies that are subject to the same observation biases as the HCQ study (which I had pointed out), so you embellished the authenticity of your sources. Common tactic, but not honest. Then when you were called on it you shifted your ground and cited other studies—which again I pointed out did not really support your position very well—and you claimed that is what you were talking about in the first place, even though it is very different.

I started by calling what you said a falsehood. That was a courtesy. I now call it what it is. A lie. And you’ve continued to lie to try to cover it up. Anyone who is reading can see that in black and white.. It’s time for you to stop.

We wore masks in church today. We wear masks every time we meet. People need to take a deep breath (perhaps through their masks) and relax. I have the idea of having a mask custom-made that reads, “The Breath of Life,” but nobody in my family thinks it’s funny.