“Let you”
“Let,” hell. Forget? Hell, NO. Not here, not for one second.
No Forgiveness For Pandemic Sins Until The Guilty Repent
The people who abused their power and imposed tyranny during the pandemic will do it again if we don’t hold them accountable.Christianity Today published a curious piece by Paul Miller on Thursday calling for everyone to forgive each other for our supposed “pandemic sins.”
He doesn’t exactly say who sinned, just that “We got things wrong,” and “Some officials made mistakes in the early days.” Things happened. Mistakes were made. It’s time to move on. Miller’s argument is basically a warmed-over, lightly Christianized version of the essay Brown University economics professor Emily Oster wrote for The Atlantic last November, which argued for a “pandemic amnesty” on account of how “uncertain” and “complicated” things were in the face of a once-in-a-century pandemic like Covid. The ruling class did its best, OK?
Oster’s piece elicited well-deserved scorn from many on the right, including our own Joy Pullmann, who noted that a genuine amnesty “requires an admission of guilt and a commitment to repairing the wrongs done.” The absence of such an admission and commitment to change, says Pullmann, is “an indication that you’re going to do it again,” and makes it impossible to rebuild trust.
Of course, the people responsible for shutting down the economy, closing schools and churches, destroying countless businesses, and condemning the elderly to die alone in their hospital rooms are not at all sorry about what they did. To this day, they don’t acknowledge any wrongdoing whatsoever. Certainly not Anthony Fauci, who in an April interview with The New York Times defiantly faulted ordinary Americans for failing to listen to him, the self-proclaimed embodiment of science.
The same people who needlessly imposed massive learning losses on schoolchildren, or barred families from burying their dead, then foisted an ineffective vaccine on the public and tried to shame or coerce everyone into taking it, regardless of their age or health status. Plenty of Americans, including those in the military and medical professions, were faced with the terrible choice of taking a shot they didn’t trust or losing their careers and livelihoods.
None of the people who did this are sorry about it. In fact, they’re proud of it — and they will absolutely do it again the next chance they get. Here’s the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mandy Cohen, jokingly relating how she and her fellow health officials came up with draconian mandates during Covid:
Which is where the “let you” line rears its ugly head, in a Tweet which I won’t bother embedding. To wit:
New CDC Director Mandy Cohen recalls how she and her colleagues came up with COVID mandates during her time as NC Health Director.
“She was like, are you gonna let them have professional football? And I was like, no. And she’s like, OK neither are we.”
Thereby perfectly encapsulating and exemplifying the set of the bureaucratic mind. Yes, this IS exactly how they think—worse, it’s who they are, way down deep inside. They cannot change, and they will not stop. They will never, EVER stop. They will have to BE stopped.
Notice the phrase “let them.” These people felt — and still feel — that the freedom to run your business, attend school, go to church, gather together with friends and family, all these things are entirely contingent on whether Mandy Cohen and her colleagues let you.
In this context, arguing for forgiveness or amnesty is really just calling for a total lack of accountability for the people who did real lasting harm to the entire country. Just as amnesty requires admission of wrongdoing, so too does forgiveness require repentance. It also requires justice and accountability. But none of the very powerful people who made cruel and ruinous decisions during the pandemic have asked for forgiveness or even acknowledged their devastating failures. None of them have been held accountable. There has been no justice.
Nor will there be, unless and until we rise up and see to its administration ourselves. Why should anyone expect otherwise? The lockdowns, the mask mandates and forced closings—the gratuitous destruction, ruin, and human misery inflicted by them—worked exactly as they were intended to, achieving every goal the petty dimestore dictators hoped they might. It was a trial run for more and worse yet to come, and it succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of the evil despots who imposed them on a submissive, sheep-like populace.
Yes, they will most certainly do it again, whenever it suits them to. Why on Earth wouldn’t they? This is who they are, it’s what they do. It’s going to be lather, rinse, repeat from here on in, until enough of us figure that out and decide at long last to put a fucking stop to it.
Update! Okay, THIS Tweet I simply can’t resist embedding, it’s just too damned good.
You told people they were bad Christians and risked going to Hell if they went to church, didn’t wear masks, or refused a dud vaccine.
Repent for what you did, acknowledge the damage you inflicted on the church, and seek forgiveness. Until then: shut up, you little snakes. https://t.co/7ltn6MdH6S
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav)
Oh, SNAP!
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