OPINION:
Anthony Fauci, the former face of coronavirus policy for two White Houses, said in closed-door testimony to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that the social distance requirement of six feet that marked much of the Covid years — and in some instances, still exists — is unscientific, random, and “sort of just appeared” on the political and cultural scenes.
In other words: He basically admitted he furthered a lie.
This is what happens when science supplants God: truth becomes whatever is wanted at the time. Humility gets tossed to the side. Fact comes from the imaginations of human minds, based on whims of politics, pride and personal agendas.
Fauci, a self-described humanist — code for secularist, a nicer sounding word for atheist — was a key figure calling for the closing of schools to keep kids safe and shuttering of businesses to keep Americans healthy, even as he denied having anything to do with the closing of schools of shuttering of businesses.
“Show me a school that I shut down and show me a factory that I shud down. Never. I never did,” Fauci famously said to The New York Times Magazine in April of 2023.
“I gave a public health recommendation that echoed the CDC’s recommendation and people made a decision based on that,” Fauci continued then.
Yes. True. Fauci didn’t shout from the rafters, ‘I order these schools to close!’ But Fauci is the king of obfuscation. He perfected this art of deception during the coronavirus craze when he was called upon to give the data, the facts, the science of the pandemic, and then couched his replies with such unscientific, unclear, watery words as “maybe” and “perhaps” and “potentially” — as in, ‘if the Republican governor of Florida opens schools and opens businesses, people could perhaps, potentially, quite possibly die.’ He would issue such dire warnings while making the media rounds and speaking to his adoring fans in the press, whom — and he knew this would happen — would then carry forth the dire warnings with a drumbeating tone of hysteria. Repeat the hysteria enough and it becomes truth, not opinion. The “perhaps” and “potentially” of Fauci’s warnings drop off and on the pages of newspapers and through the lens of news cameras and even more crucially, on the online postings of social media pages where the ignorant and partisan roam, the advisements become ‘musts’ — else people will die, people could die, people will very likely die.
Voila, policy is born. Those facing the pressure from Fauci’s ego plus fawning media plus frightened masses and sheep would more often cave and keep in place the unscientific, oft-ridiculous mandates than fight for truth and liberty.
Fauci can deny responsibility all he wants. But he’s to blame for the coronavirus stupid.
And when it comes to coronavirus stupid, social distancing was about as stupid a mandate could get, second only to the even more stupid plastic shields that went up overnight at cashier counters everywhere — many of which still remain.
Yes, indeed. It’s 2024, but the Fauci effect continues to linger. The fear-filled continue to press Fauci-inspired lies.
This is what happens when science becomes more important than God. This is what occurs when scientists — when secular, humanist, atheist scientists, a group to which Fauci belongs — are regarded as the smartest, the all-knowing, the all-perceiving, the be-all-and-end-all of truth. We get a nation cowering in fear and waiting for government bureaucrats to tell us what freedoms we’re allowed to have that day.
We get a communist system and a nations of citizens being trained to think collectively — for the good of the state — and to regard individualism, and especially the notion of individual liberties from God, as selfish, unpatriotic and harmful to others.
Fauci’s testimony to the Covid panel “revealed systemic failures in our public health system and shed light on serious procedural concerns with our public health authority,” according to Ohio Republican Chairman Brad Wenstrup, who’s also a physician, as The New York Post reported.
“After two days of testimony and 14 hours of questioning,” Wenstrup went on, “many things became evident. … Fauci claimed that the policies and mandates that he promoted [like vaccine requirements] may unfortunately increase vaccine hesitancy for years to come. It is clear that dissenting opinions were often not considered or [were] suppressed completely. Should a future pandemic arise, America’s response must be guided by scientific facts and conclusive data.”
Yes. But more than that America’s response to any future health scare must be guided by God, first; Constitution, second; and science, third — that is to say, truth and liberty should never be squashed, no matter what scientists say.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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