1980.The
guy who had been my major professor on my Phd. in theoretical physics called
me. There was a new thing going around
campus called Political Correctness. He
and I were like minds. He an Alabama
nerd and a whizz at numbers, and I a ranch kid who wanted to know how
everything in the universe worked. But it seemed, he speculated, that every
lazy hippie had become a sociology or psychology prof and they were the movers
of the PC thing. So what does PC
mean? Well, he said, it means you can’t
ask certain questions. Preposterous! I
objected. Whatever happened to Academic
Freedom. No, if it affects their views,
you can’t ask, he insisted and they have a view of science that certain
assumptions cannot be challenged. This
is crazy, I said. You mean if that work
I did with Brown and Bark (2 climatologists) on climate cycles offends them,
you can’t ask? Yes, exactly.
Little did I
know I was speaking literal truth. I
scoffed at PC. It would never succeed
against scientific inquiry. But it did! Those who advocate climate cycles are shut
out of grants and government programs.
They are in the same malaise as Einstein was when he tried to challenge
Newtonian mechanics or any doctor from the 18th century that
challenged bleeding the patient. They
were outcasts for an era.
When my
colleague talked about hippies, everyone in the 80s knew how that was. The “greatest generation” fought WW II, came
home with many issues of war they just wanted to forget and not talk
about. They left suburban homes to work
long days in the city and left the wife to raise the kids. The boys suffered most—hippies who had a poor
role model of dad. They dressed in
outlandish styles like women, grew long hair, took no responsibility, and when
war came said “Hell no, I won’t go”—as much out of cowardice as
conscience. The rich ones got away with
it, collected degrees at college and became professors. That was part of my
Baby Boom Generation. Now my same generation is chewing on their tails like the
lion in Wizard of Oz because of COVID19.
We must shut down! We must trust
government! Some states in USA have been under various shades of lockdown for
10 months. Is it working? Well, it flattened the curve of cases for the
initial 4-week trial. Then they upped
the ante to lock down until the pandemic was over. It didn’t work but that’s okay because it
feels good to do something.
Especially
the politicians. Their normal mode of
operation is to take Stands. They stand for
the end of racism or free speech or a border wall. Just don’t ask them to actually do
anything. If they ever solved a matter,
that would rob them of a Stance. Now
comes much research and “The Great Barringtron Declaration” that illustrates
the lockdowns are not working. “Current lockdown policies are producing
devastating effects on short and long-term public health.” Precisely what they meant to protect. It has doubled 48,000 suicides per year,
increased cancers 30% because of non-screening (150,000 deaths) and increased
drug and alcohol use by unknown amounts. Are we fools or what?
Meanwhile
the schoolkids and the 20-somethings are having their lives crushed. Fauci and Azar and the CDC and the VA are all
saying they never meant to imply that business should be closed down
outdoors. Pols didn’t listen. Masks aren’t very effective except to stop
the worst of spray spittle. Pols didn’t
listen. Nobody can truly define a
non-essential worker. Pols didn’t
listen. All of it playing to the
hand-wringers over 65. But count me
among the ranch kids. Nothing you do,
including simply riding a horse comes risk-free. And when my kids and grandkids are having
their future ruined to sauve senior fears, my blood boils. The hippies want to silence Christianity
which they rejected, Institutions and traditions, statues of Lincoln—tore them
all down. Now we’ll have perhaps an octogenarian leader and lockdowns. Don’t blame me if I cheer the revolution of
entrepreneurs and workers who lost their dreams. Hippies had it coming.
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