I’m back!

Today I brought my 18 year old Honda Accord in for repairs. There’s this noise in the front end…

As I was talking with the shop owner about the work to be done I noticed a man pull into the lot, park his car and walk over to the shop’s waiting room. His car caught my attention because the back of it was covered with bumper stickers. One of them said: Teach Peace. Amen brother. He had the look of an aging hippie - with long silver hair arranged in a ponytail. He was wearing a mask.

After handing the keys to my Honda over to the shop owner, I passed through the waiting room and noticed the masked man sitting all alone reading a newspaper. As he was still wearing the mask, I stopped to chat with him. I took a bold step and decided to wade into controversy. I took a deep breath.

I told him that doctors have told me that wearing a mask was appropriate in a hospital setting but that wearing it all the time might actually cause health problems and undermine one’s immune system. What I had heard was that you keep breathing back in the same air you exhale, and you create an echo chamber effect - for germs and bacteria. And viruses. It also can ramp up the CO2 in your body – a waste product that your body by way of aerobic respiration is trying to expel. There was a story I read about a person who was driving alone in a car wearing a mask who passed out and crashed into a tree. Maybe it was a pole. The wearing of the mask was alluded to as a possible cause for the driver having lost consciousness.

The man in the waiting room lowered his mask so that he could answer. I thought he was going to cuss me out. Instead, he confided to me that he had heard the same thing. He then said that he was the sole care giver for a 95 year old woman and that he didn’t want to do anything that would create any danger for her. It was then that I noticed that he was also wearing gloves.

His response warmed my heart. I’m glad I took a chance and started talking. Here’s a man who values the life of a 95 year old woman in failing health. Not everyone on the “progressive” side of things lives by values like that. It reminded me of an article I had written several years ago, about an op-ed piece by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, published in the Atlantic entitled, Why I Hope to Die at 75. The subtitle was: “An argument that society and families - and you - will be better off if nature takes its course swiftly and promptly”. In other words: old people please get on with it and die. And to paraphrase Ebenezer Scrooge – “and decrease the surplus population”.

In the article, Dr. Emanuel (pardon the expression) drops the mask and reveals what the progressive movement is all about. He makes the case, that no one should receive health care after the age of 75. I kid you not. What he doesn’t say in the article, but I think is implied, is that what he really means is that anyone on Medicare should be cut off at age 75. What that would mean is that only those who can afford it would have access to healthcare once they pass the age of 75. The 1% will always have access to healthcare.

Ezekiel Emanuel served as a presidential advisor in the Obama administration. He is one of the architects of Obamacare. I didn’t ask the masked man what he thought about Obamacare. You can make your own guess – and if your guess is as good as mine, I’m sure you can see the ironies that abound. Oh, and by the way, Ezekiel Emanuel is the brother of Rahm Emanuel who served as President Obama’s Chief of Staff and then went on to serve as the mayor of Chicago. That’s a whole other discussion.

Ezekiel Emanuel has also weighed in on the corona virus emergency. In January, he felt that it was much ado about nothing. Quoted by CNBC he said, “Everyone in America should take a very big breath, slow down, and stop panicking and being hysterical.” Later in that CNBC article is this paragraph attributed to Dr. Nancy Messonnier, a Director of the Center for Disease Control:

The Wuhan virus, which causes flu-like symptoms, is not spreading through human-to-human contact in America, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (part of the CDC), said Monday. (Incidentally, Dr. Messonier is the sister of Rod Rosenstein – who while serving as Deputy Attorney General appointed special prosecutor Robert Mueller).

A couple months later, Dr. Emanuel flip flops. Completely. He does a 180. On March 27th he is predicting 100 million cases in four weeks. In early April he is out there claiming that everyone should be in lock down for up to 18 months until a vaccine is developed – parroting Bill Gates. By April 24th, his prediction of 100 million cases had come up 99 million short. So he goes from saying that Covid19 is a nothing burger to predicting that there will 100 million cases. Then comes up 99% short. It’s unnerving to think that he is a former Presidential advisor – who thinks we should all die at the age of 75.

Dr. Ezekiel is by no means the only flip flopper. Current Presidential advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of President Trump’s corona virus task force, is also a card-carrying member of the flip flop club. Regarding masks. First he says we shouldn’t wear them. Then he says we should wear them. Here’s the Mayo Clinic’s take on masks. I guess presidential advisors are really just politicians after all.

We live in a world where everything is driven by politics and political agendas. You cannot depend on anyone’s advice – especially when it’s coming from political operatives like Drs. Fauci and Emanuel. It’s one thing when you get conflicting opinions from different so-called “experts”. It’s another when you get conflicting opinions from the same “expert” as in the cases of Fauci and Emanuel. That is why everyone must be free to make their own decisions and leave the government out of it. In fact, keep the government out of it. Our constitutional government is all about that - restraining the power of government – ensuring that people can make their own decisions.

So getting back to the masked man at the car repair shop. His reply gave me goose bumps. I understand where he is coming from. His loving concern for that 95 year old woman is about being a feeling and caring human being. It’s that kind of love that binds us together. That 95 year old woman’s life matters. It’s about valuing human life. All of us. Thank God there’s someone like that masked man that I can still relate to.