BOTH SIDES NOW

My first law job was clerking for an appeals court judge. Being an appellate judge or clerk is monastic. The judges are only on the bench once/week. The clerks never leave their desks or law library. I spent all of my time that year researching and writing five-to-twenty-page memos to facilitate judges’ decisions.

Appeals seldom succeed. The first rule of appellate practice is to be the respondent, i.e., the party that won in the trial court.

On my first day, I opened my first set of briefs. I read the appellant’s brief first. I was persuaded and thought he would win. Then I read the respondents’ response and saw that the appellant had omitted some key facts and precedents that favored the respondent. Learning this, the case became an easy call. I recommended that the appellate panel uphold the trial court decision. It did.

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You can’t believe everything you read, especially when it’s the first thing you read. In order to analyze well, one must consider multiple perspectives and have a solid understanding of the facts. To reach sound conclusions, one must also consider what’s credible and logical, versus what seems unlikely or poorly supported. Does what one reads comport with his/her life experience and logic?

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Last week, I spoke with someone who had recently read a book about the 1918 Spanish Flu. Many who pushed the Covid overreaction cited the Spanish Flu as proof that respiratory viruses are extremely dangerous and that governments should pull out all stops to quell viral outbreaks.

For multiple reasons, the Spanish Flu didn’t justify the Covid overreaction a century later. To begin with, as with Covid—but before modern recordkeeping and communications—Spanish Flu death stats are dubious.

Secondly, many of those said to have been killed by the Flu lived in trench-wartime squalor and lacked clean water, sanitation and sufficient protein; given the War’s disruption, food was undersupplied in much of the world. While people of all ages were said to have died from the 1918 Flu, those said to have been killed by the 2020-21 virus were overwhelmingly old and very sick to begin with.

Thirdly, antibiotics, which work well against secondary bacterial infections triggered by respiratory viruses, and steroids, which lessen systemic inflammation, didn’t exist until decades after the Spanish Flu. Despite their widespread availability and low cost in 2020, antibiotics and steroids were seldom given to Covid patients.

Fourthly, as during the Scamdemic, many of the reported Covid deaths were caused by medical mistreatment, including ventilation, dehydration and administration of powerful sedatives and Remdesivir. In reaction to the Spanish Flu, doctors gave lethal overdoses of a then-new pharmaceutical, aspirin.

Despite a common misperception, fueled by Public Health hype, neither America nor other nations locked down to control the Spanish Flu.

There were 1.8 billion humans in 1920. Today, 8.1 billion people inhabit the planet; that’s 300 million more than when Coronamania began. There have been countless respiratory viral outbreaks in the intervening century. If a virus killed so many people in 1918 and 2020, why wasn’t there a similarly lethal virus in the hundred years between?

Respiratory viruses don’t seriously threaten humanity. The vast majority of people who have decent food, water, sanitation and a safe place to sleep and don’t abuse substances or get killed in wars or from accidents or industrial exposures, typically live for seven or eight decades, inevitably enduring dozens of symptomatic viral infections along the way.

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Whether they read biographies or books about politics, history, public health, nutrition or the Spanish Flu, most people uncritically believe the author whose work they read first, and the news sources they habitually consume. Psychologists have often confirmed the “primacy effect,” i.e., the first thing people hear or read about a given topic endures in their perception/belief.

In general, people defend their lives and want to believe that effort is rewarded. Hence, they don’t like to feel time they’ve spent “educating” themselves was wasted. Believing their initial, or usual, sources also affirms peoples’ belief in their own good judgment regarding source selection. One-stop informational shopping also removes the cognitive challenge and dissonance that conflicting sources might present. Believing the first thing they read relieves people of the responsibility to do—and saves the time needed for—additional reading.

Having a book published doesn’t confer veracity on the writer. Publishers can print whatever they want. In libraries and bookstores, I’ve skimmed a series of Covid books over the past four years. Most of these contain many outright lies and half-truths. The pop Covid literature portrays Covid as a terrible killer; many people are emotionally drawn to this—and other—crisis narratives. Authors often assert that very few—or zero—deaths would have occurred if Trump had locked down sooner or if everyone had worn masks and later, vaxxed and boosted. All of that is ludicrous, especially because the vast majority of those who reportedly died of Covid were already not long for this world.

The mitigation and Pharma interventions were corrupt and bankrupt theater. Trump’s deference to Public Health and Biosecurity operatives and his signing of the CARES Act were much bigger blunders. Trump and Democrats both wrongly praise the injections for rescuing humanity from some purportedly terrible plague.

Those who read Covid-fearing books, newspapers magazines, or watch/listen to mainstream news reports regarding Covid saw/see themselves as well-informed. They thought/think they knew/know more after such "exploration” than they knew before they began. Yet, because these sources misled them, many readers, watchers and listeners ended up knowing less. Often, and during Coronamania, it’s not what people don’t know that hurts them; what they’re sure of—but isn’t true—can be far more harmful.

I’ve cracked open many books. I used to finish each one. Similarly, years ago, I used to watch or listen to the news, especially PBS and NPR. As time passed, I became more aware that many authors, publishers and broadcasters have agendas. I still finish every book I start. But now I speed-read those that reveal analytical deficits driven by bias. And no more NPR or PBS for me.

For the past decade of more, I’ve seldom watched, read, or listened to news. When I do, I know I’m not learning much. I tune in to see what’s considered newsworthy; it’s clear that un-PC stories are either ignored or spun. Watching for only a limited time and purpose confirms the news’s low—or negative—educational value.

It’s beyond ironic that governments and media outlets who rail against mis/disinformation routinely engage in these practices, especially during the Scamdemic. As one of many examples, the bureaucrats, pols and newspeople insisted the shots were “safe and effective” and would “stop infection and spread.” Tens of millions of American blindly believed this initial message and vilified those who thought more carefully and refused to inject. The non-vaxxers were right.

Instead of focusing on agenda-driven sources, people would have seen a clearer picture of SARS-CoV-2 risk by trusting what they directly observed. If the virus had really been killing the healthy, non-old, everyone would have seen, early on and with their own eyes—or heard, from familiar, trusted others—credible evidence of the virus’s purported, population-wide lethality.

Throughout the Scamdemic, I kept my eyes and ears open to see if the vaunted virus would kill healthy people. I was continuously unsurprised that all of the remotely healthy people I knew remained alive. In addition to observing my own realm, I continually asked people who they knew, or knew of, who had died. I was continually unsurprised that most directly knew no one who died; the only people who said they knew a Covid victim mentioned a distant relative who was old or very baseline sick.

As in my first clerkship case, considering both sides made Covid policy an easy call. even from Day 1: no American jurisdiction should have locked down, closed schools, mandated masks, tests or shots, or given away any Covid money. Only people trying to mess things up would have reacted so dysfunctionally.

Nonetheless, many will hold onto their initial belief that Covid was a terrible threat that warranted lockdowns, vaxx crusades and additional, astronomical Public Health subsidies. Bureaucrats and Pharma will continue to lavishly fund university research and more shots to “stop the next Pandemic!”

Given the Covid hype, Public Health will become a trendy college major for impressionable teens. Misinformed parents and guidance counselors will enthusiastically support this dubious career choice. Public Health careerists would better serve society by planting trees, killing rats or excess deer, visiting lonely old people or picking trash off of sidewalks. But these tasks would require real work.