Forgiveness isn't going to be easy. Especially in this culture. Especially at this particular moment in time. Especially with such little remorse for so grievous an offense.
Ironically, I was sitting on an airplane watching a handful of passengers board donning N95 surgical masks when I scrolled across this story:
Let me give you a pull quote from that article to underscore the dissonance between scientific reality and the world of panicked paranoia that still grips so many:
The most rigorous and extensive review of the scientific literature concludes that neither surgical masks nor N95 masks have been shown to make a difference in reducing the spread of Covid-19 and other respiratory illnesses.
This coming on the heels of The New York Times admitting that natural immunity was just as effective (if not more so) than getting the vaccine, underscores a disheartening and very concerning reality. The people we regard as experts, the educated and elite, were wrong on nearly everything regarding Covid-19.
Consider:
- Wrong about closing schools.
- Wrong about asymptomatic spread.
- Wrong about hospitals being overrun.
- Wrong about social distancing.
- Wrong about lockdowns.
- Wrong about fatality rate.
- Wrong about closing businesses.
- Wrong about 15 days to slow the spread.
- Wrong about the impact on kids.
- Wrong about outdoor transmission.
- Wrong about vaccine effectiveness.
- Wrong about masks.
- Wrong about natural immunity.
And they may well prove to be wrong about vaccine safety as well as the potential for and seriousness of vaccine injury.
But it gets much worse. Being wrong when you are paid handsomely to be right is bad enough. But when you have failed so fully and completely, the least anyone should be able to expect is acknowledgement and apology. But instead of humility and regret, the general public is encountering an inexplicable scorn from their self-proclaimed betters. And it's infuriating the masses:
He's right, of course. Missing sports games, going to the gym, getting haircuts, hanging out at restaurants – those were all nuisances we all now realize were unnecessary. But that isn't what is making people angry. This is:
People are furious because they were compelled to stay home while their mom or dad died alone in the hospital. Compelled by the very same doctors and authorities who now mock them for complaining about missing Pilates.
It's all contemptible.
Generations of public trust squandered on an unjustifiable global power grab that many of them – the vast majority of them – knew was based on flawed or faked data. I don't see how our increasingly immoral, self-focused people will ever offer forgiveness. That seems almost as unlikely as our increasingly elite, expert professionals asking for it in the first place.
