Deceit, Contradiction, and Hypocrisy During a Pandemic: Following the Dots

• Pandemic: /panˈdemik/ “(of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world.”
• Public Health: /ˈpəblik/ /helTH/ “the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private communities, and individuals.”

Some Republican governs have taken “emergency powers” to prevent local mayors, public health experts, and other officials from taking “emergency powers” to mitigate a deadly transmissible viral pandemic.

• Major Tenets of 21^st Century Republican Party Conservative Political Philosophy: Small decentralized government with local control and governance, low taxes across the board, “free-market” unrestricted capitalism, restrictions on the power of labor unions, increased military spending, gun rights, restrictions on abortion, restrictions on immigration.
• Irony: /ˈīrənē/ “the expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.”

The Republican Party’s overarching platform stands on shaky foundations and not “for humorous or emphatic effect.” While at once it proposes small government without regulations on the economy or on the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, it also demands regulations on the ability of women to control their own bodies, extreme limits on the powers of labor unions to represent workers, and imposition of draconian constraints on immigration of, particularly black and brown people.

• Contradiction: /ˌkäntrəˈdikSH(ə)n/ “a combination of statements, ideas, or features of a situation that are opposed to one another.”

So, these Republican governors, who previously committed in statements during their run for office and since taking over the joysticks of state government to act on their commitment to small government and local control, have contradicted themselves many times over.

• Paradox: /ˈperəˌdäks/ “a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory.”

These governors, however, are suing mayors and local school districts to prevent them from instituting mask mandates as students are returning to classrooms. They are attempting to subvert local governance.

Republican governors in several states, including Florida and Texas, have barred local officials from instituting mask mandates in schools. In addition, Republican candidate for California governor, Larry Elder, promised that if elected he would repeal the current vaccine and mask mandates in that state.

• Hypocrisy: /həˈpäkrəsē/ “the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.”

These Republicans are attempting to deny local government officials the power to govern based on recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s Covid-19 best practices in mitigation strategies to stem the virus: requiring vaccinations, indoor masking and outdoors in crowds, social distancing of at least a certain distance, indoor ventilation, frequent washing of hands, disinfection of commonly used surfaces, infection quarantining, and others.

• Fraud: /ˈfrȯd/ “intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right.”
• Deceit: /dəˈsēt/ “the action or practice of deceiving someone by concealing or misrepresenting the truth.”

As pediatric Covid-19 infection cases in Florida have soared an incredible 84% in the past week alone due largely to the more highly contagious and virulent Delta strain of the virus, for example, and though the overall state infection rate is currently the highest per capita in the nation, Republican Governor DeSantis issued an Executive Order banning the implementation of mask mandates in schools to “protect parents’ freedom to choose whether their children wear masks.” In May, he tweeted that “the time for government mask mandates is over.”

• Culture War: /ˈkəlCHər/ /wôr/ “a conflict between groups with different ideals, beliefs, philosophies, etc.”

DeSantis exploits the false and fraudulent binary opposition with Individual Freedom on one side and Public Concerns on the other. These issues, in fact, are joined together not in opposition, but as intricately connected.

But DeSantis seems less interested in ensuring the public health of Texas residents and more concerned with using his strong individual freedom mantra as a basis for his fundraising efforts in his quest for reelection in 2022 and as the current frontrunner for the Republican Party’s standard-bearer in the 2024 presidential sweepstakes.

Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona has also prohibited mandates for masks, vaccines, and vaccine passports. He argued that CDC guidance is “just another example of the Biden-Harris Administration’s inability to effectively confront the Covid-19 pandemic” that will “only diminish confidence in the vaccine.”

While Texas remains as one of the major epicenters in the high rate of Covid-19 transmission, Governor Greg Abbott lifted all mask mandates throughout the state to the dismay of an increasing number of local officials.

“With the medical advancements of vaccines and antibody therapeutic drugs, Texas now has the tools to protect Texans from the virus,” said Abbott. “We must now do more to restore livelihoods and normalcy for Texans by opening Texas 100 percent.”

The governor clearly has disregarded public health best practices as that state’s schools are about to reopen, and he has clearly placed business interests over the health of Texans.

• Death Cult: /deTH/ /kəlt/ “a fringe religious group that glorifies or is obsessed with death.”

The Republican Party, by pandering to its increasingly conservative Christian evangelical base, has essentially itself become a religious cult choosing death in the name of God over reasoned scientific advancements. Ironically, this supposed “pro-life” political party mandate policies of death (suicidal and homicidal).

• Separation of Powers: /ˌsepəˈrāSH(ə)n/ /əv/ /ˈpou(ə)r/ “an act of vesting the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of government in separate bodies.”

In the judgment of the crafters of the nation’s Constitution, and, in particular, with James Madison, our national and state executives, legislators, and jurists have restrictions placed upon them by the other two governmental branches.

Recently the judicial branch has circumvented the Republican fraudulent death cult and has placed “public” back into “public health.”

In two separate Texas court decisions, for example, judges granted local officials the authorization to implement face mask mandates in opposition of an order by Governor Abbott prohibiting local governments from issuing such orders.

An Arkansas judge temporarily prevented the state from enforcing its legislative ban on mask mandates as the state shows sharp increases in the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

Following the University of Indiana’s policy of requiring all students attending in-person classes this fall to have been vaccinated, eight students petitioned the Supreme Court for an emergency order reversing the policy. They claimed that the risks of vaccination outweigh potential benefits for young people in their age group.

Amy Coney Barrett, who represents this district of the country on the Supreme Court, refused to block the University’s mandate.

A federal judge issued a ruling that Norwegian Cruise Line can compel passengers to show proof of vaccination (a so-called “vaccine passport”) despite a Florida law prohibiting it from doing so.

• Wisdom: /ˈwizdəm/ “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.”

Twelve-year-old Lila Hartney, a seventh-grade student in the Duval County Florida school district, after learning that her district would not require in-school masking for the upcoming school year, wrote an urgent letter to the school board and superintendent pressing them to mandate the wearing of masks.

“I would like to encourage the requirement of masks at school in Duval County,” she wrote.

Though Lila and her parents have been vaccinated, she was deeply concerned about her 10-year-old brother who is currently not eligible for the shots since he is under the approved age.

“Right now, especially as the Delta variant is surging, hospitalizing and killing so many kids, I really believe that masks should be required,” Lila continued. “I am so worried that if masks are not required my brother could go to school one day and the next be dying in the hospital. We are siblings so we have our rivalries but I don’t know what I would do if he died, especially if it was caused by a place that means so much to him, school.”

She said that she wanted students to know that masks help everyone, regardless of whether they are vaccinated. A Duval County School Board member responded to Lila’s letter, and the 12-year-old said. “They said they are taking this seriously and listening to the science.”

However, the School Board’s decided to offer a “Student Mask/Facial Covering Opt-Out Form” with the announcement that facial coverings are strongly recommended, but “parents who would like to opt their child out of wearing a face covering can do so.”

Deception and deceit won the day over “taking this seriously and listening to the science.”

Lila’s courageous stand, nonetheless, has started a movement of young people in speaking out against prioritizing politics over public health and to end the death cult that is the Republican Party.

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This post is republished on Medium.

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