By Bela “Bill” Suhayda
I picked up my eight-year-old granddaughter from school the other day, and instead of driving her home which I would as in “Miss Daisy,” I asked if she wanted to sit in the front passenger seat with grandpa. She was giddy with delight, and mischief, when she opened the door to slide in next to me where it was forbidden by automobile passenger law for children.
That evening, when my wife, Brenda, and I delivered her and her sister, Audrey, home to my daughter, Stephanie, and son-in-law, Brian, she was dying to tell her parents how naughty we had been. So we confessed our breach of child transport protocol in the new age. We compared the normal of today with how it used to be. We reflected on the good old days when sitting on the hump between driver and passenger seats was the old normal.
I still remember when swings were not dangerous to me, or other kids. I didn’t feel at risk riding a bike without a helmet. Back in the day, only the clumsy, nerdy, kids had to do that. Am I still allowed to say nerdy? Our concern for safety has taken on greater urgency the older I get. I find myself committing faux pas in all sorts of ways in comparison to things as they used to be. I don’t remember having agreed to, or voting on much of the safety guidelines that have become sacrosanct. The new laws have come into existence without my knowledge. The world is being idiot-proofed and I find myself the idiot. I’ve reflected on so many of the new rules and procedures I’m having to follow with hand tools, lawn mowers, gas cans, and wonder how I lived to be as old as I am. I don’t recall responding to any questionnaires for the changes manufacturers think they have to invent to prevent me from killing myself. I’m sure it was our litigious society that did all of that.
The old science told us red dye #5 in maraschino cherries cause cancer and if we used asbestos for ceiling tiles in our schools and home, our children would be safer from fire. The science of today tells us we must wear masks during this pandemic. Now I’m hearing two and even three masks are needed to be safe. Why not 10? And where are the studies to prove it? Just shut up and obey, they say!! Everyone I see and know is distancing, wearing masks, and locking down when told. Yet our numbers spike for what seem to be unknown reasons.
Who keeps or makes sense of the numbers? And who can double-check these numbers when the skeptics are fact checked out of existence because they violate community standards with their skepticism. We are told masking and distancing eventually will work if we continue to do it forever. When has our world ever locked down the healthy in a pandemic? Why did we decide we should lock down our schools when we know more children die of suicide than COVID-19 as a result of the lock downs? How did government get to decide who could work and who couldn’t?
More than 300,000 U.S. businesses are gone, never to return. How is it determined some of us are essential or nonessential workers? Did we see the science? No! What legislation, or vote allowed it to happen? What happened to civil liberties and our Constitution?
Our social discourse has been under a microscope recently. Self-appointed social engineers, want to create the perfect utopian society, see danger in the words we use, and in our political thoughts. Some ideas are accepted. Others who disagree with the accepted, are considered dangerous, First Amendment be damned. I’m seeing a development of a thought police telling us what is proper expression and what is not. Businesses and schools, when they were still allowed to be open, conducted seminars in political correctness so that we won’t offend. Then it was determined some can utter words, or thoughts, others are not allowed. It happened with a therapeutic called Hydroxychloroquine. Any information of this drug being effective was considered dangerous and worthy of censorship. The information was not in accordance with the community standards of social media. Facebook and YouTube censored good news about the drug even as it was successfully used all over the world… no discussion allowed. (Editor’s note: Hydroxychloroquine successfully treats malaria, not COVID-19)
Then there was the case of the November 3 election. Those who felt there had been shenanigans in the election were yelling “Stop the Steal.” The alarm bells went off and these words became hate speech and sedition to be censored by social media. Those yelling these words were labeled subversive. More fuel was added to the fire when the Capitol building was breached. Investigations of everyone who was known to attend the president’s speech, that day, began to materialize and no fly lists were created. Thousands of National Guardsmen were called out and continue to stay in D.C. (great political theater) as protection against an insurrection. The president was censored from all social media in the absence of any speech he spoke inciting the riot that went on at the same time he was speaking. An impeachment ensued with no material evidence of incitement of violence against the government. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said to Ted Cruz: “You almost had me murdered.” Senators Cruz and Josh Hawley were asked to be ejected from the Senate for not denouncing the president. Parler was censored out of existence by Apple, Twitter, and Facebook because it guaranteed its users an uncensored medium in which to communicate.
Our fears, and political agendas have created totalitarianism. Wake up, it’s later than you think.