LOVE this OpEd
COVID lockdowns are the most selfish act of the most selfish generation
If they are too scared of the world to walk around in it, say our boomer leaders, then no one should be allowed out of the house.
If the "greatest generation" were those who set off to fight in World War II, the most selfish generation are undoubtedly their children. These are the ones in our society who are advocating hard for the rest of us to suffer so that they might live. They impose lockdown orders, tell us to cancel our holidays, to stay home, to turn to technology for literally everything that we used to do together—work, education, social life, entertainment.
If they had any sense of justice or sacrifice themselves, they would isolate themselves for their own safety, and let the rest of us live in peace. Every new round of coronavirus cases (neé deaths) is a new reason for elected leaders of my parents' generation to issue new, restrictive orders that limit our ability to work, socialize, or educate our children.
The global Influenza A pandemic in 1968 was virtually ignored by the boomers, so much so that they held a massive music festival in Woodstock, New York, with absolutely no concern for their own health, or anyone else's. Now they have shut down the world to keep themselves safe.
And while they tell us it is for our own good, it's not even working.
Lockdowns in America, now in their 10th month, are not effective. We keep hearing that because people are dying, we need to lockdown more, we need to sacrifice more, that if we just give over our lives even further to fear we may have a chance at surviving. While sacrifice feels good because it feels like we are actually doing something, it is not actually helping.
Numbers are up. Lockdowns have been enforced since mid-March. It doesn't seem to matter who comes out and says lockdowns are a trash idea, either. The Word Health Organization, after originally following China's instructions in telling the world to shut down its economic engines, has since said that they meant only a short term lockdown, not these near year long extensions. What the WHO meant, apparently, was something more along the lines of "flattening the curve," not endless isolation resulting in poverty and starvation.
The issuance of The Great Barrington Declaration was another moment of light that America's leaders could have used to indicate that they were skipping down exactly the wrong path. Folks like Governors Whitmer, Cuomo, Newsom, Inslee, could have read the document and realizing that depriving their citizens of their livelihoods and earning power was not the top idea. But instead, these boomers doubled down on their plans, saying we have to lockdown more, deprive ourselves more, all for their own fears.
The Declaration calls for Focussed Protection, saying that: "Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health, which is of course the very thing the lockdowns and restrictions were meant to protect.
They cite "lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health," and say outright that "Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice," that "Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed."
It is the aged, they say, and not the young who are most vulnerable to fatality from COVID-19. They write that "for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza." Yet these are the very people who are being horribly harmed by restrictions and lockdowns. In an effort to protect themselves, the boomers are destroying the lives of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
If they are too scared of the world to walk around in it, say our boomer leaders, then no one should be allowed out of the house.
The baby boomers, those kids born to the returning war heroes, played in suburban yards, were educated in well-funded public schools, and were able to fund their college degrees with summer jobs. These are the ones who took the sacrifices their parents made for them and threw them back in their face, and now they're telling the rest of us to sacrifice on the altar of their own fears.
The baby boomers burned their parents' morality, religion, tradition, institutions, and anything else they could get their hands on, and they did it thoroughly. Now, in a wave of self-hatred and righteousness, they are burning western civilization to the ground, not just what their parents built, but their own contributions as well. And they're doing it because they are terrified.
The baby boomers are well past middle age, and while every new decade was reclassified just for them as "the new 30," there's just no way to spin that at 60, or at 70, and as the age of frailty and the elderly last few decades near close, they are finally having to open their eyes to the creeping decrepitude and irrelevance of old age. They don't like it one bit. So much so that they've installed a near octogenarian as leader of the free world—and they're happy about it.
They have enjoyed decades of telling us what is in our best interests, and somehow it is always to serve their own ends. These lockdowns are just the same.
