On Monday I had the great honor of sitting in for Rush on America's Number One radio show. After wishing a happy if muted Victoria Day to my compatriots, we turned to Obamagate, Corona-lockdown, the death of music, the masking of free speech, South Korean sex dolls out on the town and much more. Click below to listen:
At a time when the population is totally binary and divided into essential and non-essential persons, it's heartening to know that the former category includes the designated pajama boy at Media-ite who has to listen to Rush for three hours every day and find something to get the vapors over. Then he types it out, as if its ridiculousness is self-evident. Today's triggered stenographer was Caleb Howe and he was befuddled by my comments on Sharia-lite:
"You know the last time I was writing about societies banning music it was ISIS and the Taliban," said Steyn of pandemic measures that involve limiting public events such as concerts. "I'm creeped out by the fact that we're basically adopting ISIS/Taliban policies on music."
Ooooooooooh!
I'm so bloody bored by cancel culture. The only thing more tedious is can't-quite-cancel culture. The pajama police have been trying to take me out for a while now - they got close a month or so back over some Corona comments - but they can never quite seal the deal, which is kinda pathetic. Caleb & Co really need to work harder. Surely there's a CAIR spokeman who could have complained how Islamophobic it is to suggest Muslims behead 'cellists?
Caleb notwithstanding, thank you for all your Mark Steyn Club membership renewals in this third birthday month. We do our best to provide you with a few digitally delivered delights while you're holed up in the hills till the zombie apocalypse passes. For more on the Steyn Club see here.
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Mark,
On Rush yesterday, you quoted someone, surely an expert, who has realized that what must be stopped is unprotected human contact, an ironic take on "the human touch." Viewing a future in which this virus or its permutations will never end is a well-aired theory from people - we all know many of them - who genuinely love to say such things. Its no big achievement to combine it with the already prominent perception, on which distancing policy is based, that other humans - the whole species - are threats, potentially exuding tiny microns of Wuflu, able to cough doom across a room and leave invisible long lasting infectors on surfaces they touch. Staying away from others is still current policy.
Hoagy Carmichael might write:
It's not the lonely nights that chill me,
Whose touch could accidentally kill me,
Oh no, it's just the nearness of you
Kelly Ambrose, Sr.
When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging. The foreign trade deficit with China was still $345 Billion in 2019. This money pays for the Chinese military buildup, distorting our real estate market and now we are worried that when our small energy companies, among others, go bankrupt due to our shutdown, the Chinese will buy them putting us deeper in the hole.
The Chinese are reasonably content stalling trade talks because they collect that $300+ Billion every year. What needs to be done immediately is not just repatriating the pharmaceutical industry and strategic manufacturing but eliminating the trade deficit. 1973 was the last year with a positive balance of payments. Since then imports have exceeded exports. Whenever American diplomats negotiate a trade deal, treaty or an environmental accord, America loses. It is more important for the bureaucrat to come to a deal while acting important and living in luxury at five star hotels than to deliver a deal that benefits the common man and doesn't sacrifice certain people and regions. The only real mechanism to achieve a balance of payments is tariffs and import/export restrictions.
This will fly in the face of China 2025 plan and will make the Chinese angry. The goals of Made in China 2025 include increasing the Chinese-domestic content of core materials to 70 percent by 2025. The plan focuses on high-tech fields including the pharmaceutical industry, automotive industry, aerospace industry, semiconductors, IT and robotics. Places like Australia should note that the Chinese want to reduce buying foreign resources such as mining. We will have to defend our current industries while trying to recapture old ones. We will not be able to rely on a free market to do this. We will have to target and subsidize a large number of industries. This is going to be a giant case of us having to become more like China.
If we are successful at all, we can expect more ship bumping on our freedom of navigation sail-bys and harassing our reconnaissance aircraft. Remember when the Chinese jet collided with our plane in 2001? This has been happening regularly and its going to get worse. The Chinese military think they could win a conflict in the Western Pacific and this is very dangerous thing.
Do we have what it takes to win this competition? International corporations want to move their supply chain and so what do they do? They move to Vietnam, another Communist country. Then they will expect us to form a military alliance with Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia to protect their assets and shipping lanes. So, no I don't think we can compete unless big changes are made.
This recent crisis has brought out a new divide in America, identifying and empowering a group that has a firm belief in State control and the need for wide directed order and those who bristle at infringements on their personal liberty and choice. These choices, and which concept dominates, will have huge effects on how our future unfolds.
Mark is right to ring the alarm.
Our American cultural values are not as deeply rooted as we may have hoped. The theme of "sacrifice for the good of all...." still carries weight in the US, as it should. However, the counter-balance of reason, necessity, and the protection of liberty seem to have gotten lost. Professional politicians swim in the sea of State action, isolated from the challenges and joys of a productive, competitive, risky, free life. They so easily forget what it's like to work for a living, face tough choices, and therefore guard freedom of choice jealously. But so many others seem to join them in preferring a Police State to the risks of seeing other people free, as well as themselves.
Have we all gotten that wimpy? I suspect not, but I think we forgot the dear value of free choice, well worth the responsible hard work of taking care of ourselves and doing no harm to others. That's why we appreciate Mark & Rush speaking up from the sidelines, reminding us of these. Better than letting crises re-teach us.
When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can count on Paul's support.
Another excellent show.
I used to say, I don't know what scares me more, the people who crave power, or the ones willing to give it to them. After the meek acceptance of all the coronatine rules, I doubt I'll say that any longer, as it's been firmly established the ones willing to give them the power are the bigger problem.
Trump understood that outbreaks are localised - not nationwide - when he proposed a temporary quarantine of America's Wuhan (and wider "Hubei") in March.
But long before that was the epic failure by "experts". Just as China could have prevented 95% of infections if containment measures there had begun 3 weeks earlier, the same could also be said of the US once the virus was within its borders. The real scandal isn't the modelling, but the disastrous management for many weeks by the CDC & Co that led to extensive spread of the virus - before its explosion in NY.
"Early on in this crisis, the CDC, which really had the most trusted brand around the world in this space -- really let the country down with the testing. Not only did they keep the testing within the bureaucracy, they had a bad test and that set us back," Peter Navarro said on NBC's "Meet the Press" (May 17).
Hmmm. The "most trusted brand" in the third world, perhaps. Except for the fact that parts of the third world did better than the superpower on testing and containment.
The bureaucrats turned a "known-known" into an unknown: "There is currently no reported community spread of #COVID19 in the US." (CDC, February 26th).
And *everything* else followed.
Mark replies:
Very true, Kate. As Dr Birx is reported to have said, "I can't trust anything coming out of the CDC."
For three years now its become clear that the swamp is our whole country. We thought it was just corrupt politicians and unelected bureaucrats. Now we see its more than that. The swamp is the FBI, NSA, CIA, Judiciary, Scientific community, higher and lower education, entertainment industry, big tech, and the list goes on. What made me think about this is what has happened to Flynn and that the possibility that Obama and Biden will go free. Flynn sat in a prison for three years because the judiciary in this nation agreed with the outcome. Now that the outcome has been reversed, we have a judge that wants him to go to jail because he didn't think he should be free. It's no different than when Trump had his immigration policies being blocked by District 9 judges. What do you think would happen if Obama and Biden actually went to trial and was found guilty. Judges, more than likely from the ninth district, would intervene en mass until they get the desired outcome that they want.
We can't trust any institution anymore to allow an outcome to favor our side. The swamp is everywhere and has corrupted everything. Now I understand the lack of fight in the Republican Party. They know that whatever victory they get would be short lived. This can't be the America we wanted. We need to wipe the slate clean with it all and start over.
Thank you so much, Mark for posting this. I've never managed to get the links you usually use to work. Great show.
Mark replies:
Thank you, Diane. I couldn't get away with it on LBC...
A caller raised socialized medicine on the show. Which provides the opportunity to note that the highest death rates from the Sino scourge are occurring in the countries of Western Europe. I am not familiar with the intricacies of Belgian medicine, but I bet I'm not wrong in assuming that the Walloons and their Flemish brethren--along with their Spanish, Italian, French, and English neighbors--share some form of government-controlled health care. And they're all dying at rates of over ten percent, and there ain't no one else close. Maybe because other countries lie (maybe?), but the Western European survivors of this Xi-WHO-Must-Be-Obeyed pandemic ought to demand of their leaders why so many of their beloved died in supposedly first-world, cradle to grave (no kidding!) health care.
Of course, the US has its own death panelists, and his name is Andrew Cuomo. Not content to have stoked the flames of contagion in nursing homes, he now answers a question of responsibility for geriatric genocide by shrugging it off: "they were going to die anyway." This guy was the flavor of the day for Biden's VP? Was Dr. Kevorkian unavailable? Give me that stocky lady from Georgia. I'm not sure what national or global experience she picked up in the Georgia state house, but at least she never picked up a pillow and held it over the face of someone's grandmother. That anyone can prove.
"Xi-WHO-Must-Be-Obeyed"! Outstanding!
"XI WHO", that was brilliant, like a dastardly version of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, a dazzling dance team that no one in the world could beat!
Cuomo - with his "legal shield" - fine-tuned his campaign of senicide based on the Lombardy model, where Attilio Fontana, president of the Lombardy region, is facing a potential class action lawsuit for mass culpable homicide. See, "The 'massacre' of Italy's elderly nursing home residents" - M Tavertini, TRTWorld, May 20.
"Everything Fred did, backwards, and in heels". I had a massive crush on Ginger in my youth.
Funny, Fred was my crush in high school. Dates were in short supply for me so I dreamed of dancing cheek to cheek with him! One summer our little b & w telly showed Fred and Ginger movies for half of July. Couldn't find a summer job so I accepted it and enjoyed being a bum. Sheer heaven!
We all hate cancel culture here or limits of free speech , apart from enticement to violence of course , as per JSM.
Gun culture , Chairman Mao loved it.
So great to be able to voice your opinion here , as misguided as it may be , amongst such kindred spirits.
Pajama is an Indian word , the richness of the English language.
The richness of your site.
I wasn't able to listen to all of today's show in real time, so I'm very grateful to find the podcast here. Thanks so much!
On Rush you remarked, this is America, there will be lawsuits
You also added that all of our post 9/11 security measures didn't prevent the Allahu Akbar in Florida
You also mentioned the Pelosi's bill was described as a liberal wish list, to which you asked, where is the conservative wish list.
Since my conservative wish list is isn't gaining the traction I had projected in my model: reduce the size of federal government until your representatives are insignificant wankers, then commit ritual suicide. Or go back to your prior job, whichever you prefer. Perhaps this can be shoehorned into the Republican version of the Corona boondoggle.
Remove the TSA from ritual passenger screening. If anything, make it more focused liked Israeli. No more screening for domestic travel, the Republican wish list would prevent domestic airlines from being sued in event of terrorist acts (i.e. acts of non-God).
Hey, it might help the travel industry and certainly can't hurt the security Kabuki we now endure.
Media-ite is deemed to be an essential business under Gov. Cuomo's Executive Order? It is about as essential as a cavity.
No, no, no. Online services can operate as usual. Way easier to track and control people that way. I'm really trying to not put on the tin foil hat, but our government is really making it hard to resist.
I'm trying to get real and admit to myself that we really no longer live in a "free" country. AG Barr has decided not to go after Biden and Obama. Why is that? Is it unseemly? Are there solid legal and political reasons not to? Or have we simply decided that justice is too hard of a concept to enforce? It's all about optics only. Has the "justice" system simply ceased to exist in any meaningful way? And why are at least half the people I see every day acting as if they are afraid of a monster under their bed? People are being made neurotic by a bunch of political hacks claiming to be experts. The supine behavior of so many people is truly discouraging to behold. I'm a "high risk" person because I'm over 65 and have had diabetes for nearly 40 years. I'm not going to stop living because of that. I applaud the Shelley Luthers out there but there are way to many who won't leave their homes unless a political hack "expert" grants them permission. For some time now I've felt the 4th of July has been ringing very hollow. Is it in the Declaration somewhere that we sought the right to grill hamburgers and watch fireworks? The Declaration enumerates a long list of tyrannical policies that demanded that action be taken. Does one person in a hundred know what any of those things were and whether they remain relevant and descriptive of human nature? This coronavirus business, with a few exceptions, has revealed the worst in us. Please God let this be a teachable moment for the better.
The "Justice" system is part of the swamp. Ninth District judges are proof of that when they have the power to prevent Trump from enacting his own immigration laws. Or when Flynn is allowed to sit in prison for three years because the outcome reflected their views. The swamp is everywhere and whatever battle we win or whatever good news we give for this pandemic, they're there to dump cold water on it. Even if we were to go after Obama and Biden, some activist judge would intervene and stall the outcome and if they lose, they'll keep sending more judges out there and the process will be just as long as Mark's legal battle with Mann. This reality is why the Republicans have been spineless. They know whatever they do they can't win. We need to get rid of them all and start over.
Mark, I just want to tell you how grateful I am for your efforts here, to Rush for putting you in his chair, and I am proud to be a charter member of the Mark Steyn Club, and will remain so as long as both of us are here. I had joined that other club primarily because you were part of it. The dirty deeds they did made me drop them. The annual fee for MSC is a great value, as far as I'm concerned.
God bless you and yours,
Mark replies:
Thank you, James. Very glad to have you.
Lou Dobbs went off on his show today and I'm glad he did. What say you Mark? Do you feel the same way? I can't believe that the Republicans expect Trump to carry them across the finish line in November yet again. We need fresh blood for our party and a spine transplant since our current party has none.
Only a few weeks before this Wuhan virus truly exploded, Paul Homewood wrote a characteristically brilliant article, demonstrating what the consequences would be of following the British "Conservative" government's bonkers "zero carbon" policies: basically, a total breakdown of what's left of the British economy, combined with outright fascism. Within no time, however, thanks to the Chinese and our inept rulers, we were already living the Green Dream, which wasn't supposed to kick in before 2030, or by the time Greta looked more than thirteen years old, whichever might come first.
"...and act like grownups." Indeed sir.
Thank you Mark! I was planning to renew anyway, but finding that Rush Podcast this morning was like a renewal bonus especially for me. I've always wanted to hear you on radio but a 1.30am start here in Oz, and numerous connection dropouts, made it too hard. Just yesterday I was thinking of asking if you could somehow record the show and add it to your audio files... and, blow me down*, here it is. Happy day!
(*No thats not the expression I really used in private).
I've always loved opera: Italian, German and Russian. In the last few years, I have heard Lohengrin, Boris Godunov, Otello, La Traviata, La Fille du Régiment and La Bohème at Covent Garden. I never thought that those were going to be the last operas I'd ever hear in the theatre, but that seems to be likely.
No it won't be . That noise will keep the crowds thin.
Looking forward to Led Zep XII at Covent Garden but the crowds will kill it . Those Fascists.
Cheers .
Please don't depress me anymore than I already am, Owen. Opera was one of the few things left that took me up and away. It has everything: the music, the drama, the art direction, the glamour, the vocalists, the chorus, in some the choreography. Nooooo, not opera! Opera can never go away. The last three I attended by the Seattle Opera were: Rigoletto, Porgy and Bess and The Turn of the Screw. Worth every penny to get there from here, too. I was looking forward to more since one of the airlines just started a non-stop between cities. This pandemic, too, will pass.
Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell have to go. They are saying just enough to stick around yet when it comes to the things that matter, they fold like a bunch of lawn chairs but not a knife because Bryan Adams has that analogy. We need people that are going to go all in and not do it half-assed. Three years of this BS and they insist on more investigating? They are part of the problem and one if not the main reason why people have stopped believing in the Republican Party pre-Trump. Now that we have Trump, they show that they're just being content of being the opposing party and caving in to Democratic pressure when they win. We need them out and we need more Republicans that realize that the old Democratic Party isn't coming back like the days before the pandemic hit.
Throw in Trey Gowdy as well.
Amen to all of the above - being the TOTAL skeptic that I have become through all of this, I'm suspicious that Lindsey Graham is trying to keep the spotlight off the memory of John McCain.
Finally!!!!!!
Thanks so much Mark!
I always have trouble actually finding you on Rush!
Made yesterday's renewal all the more worthwhile!
Meanwhile, for your Britwanker copper series, have you seen the case of the lorry driver and the spontaneous kiss?
Also, check out Prof. Rose Salseda at Stanford and the rap lyrics ....
Anti-racism is complete bollox.
There was an equivalent pandemic 50 years ago. The Hong Kong Flu killed 100,000 in the U.S., then 30,000 in the UK and at least 1 million worldwide, probably more. The Wall Street Journal wrote about it April 24 in a feature article titled "Forgotten Pandemic Offers Contrast to Today's Coronavirus Lockdown." I was working in a college news bureau 1969-70, and I can verify the Journal's report that "news outlets devoted cursory attention to the virus while training their lenses on other events such as moon landings and the Vietnam war."
Hardly any of us 20-somethings feared this killer virus then -- no masks, no social distancing, no canceled concerts. Woodstock and lesser rock festivals certainly weren't cancelled during that Hong Kong flu outbreak -- and nobody carped about the "racism" of its Asian name, either. When did we become so paranoid?
Wow, both I and my hubby had the Hong Kong flu 50 years ago. We were really, really down for a couple of days, grateful for our apartment's tiny bathroom where the sink was directly across from the toilet, saving us many steps by the convenience. Then we went on with our lives.
This absurd reaction to another virus, perhaps even less deadly than the Hong Kong flu (when you remember that we had about 100,000,000 fewer people back then), would almost seem to be a plot engaged in by the media, colluding with the Dems, in one last ditch effort to destroy President Trump, even if it means bringing America to her knees. It seems to be failing and the media and the Dems seem to be getting more and more strident with every failing day.
I have been shocked at how easily the entire country bowed to the rules of their betters. As President Trump might say, "Sad."
He might also add, "and scary."
We became paranoid when we grew up and got in charge of the thing. 1969-70 was the year of protest ending in the Kent State shootings, and we were essentially given the rest of the year off for colIege classes and could choose to take things "pass/fail". I remember we were accused of being against everything, the war, middle class values, etc., and we weren't "for" anything, except sex and drugs. So if not part of solution, part of problem kind of thing. We imported those values into middle and older age, got in charge of education and government bureaucracy among other things, and are proceeding to dismantle the country. Not to mention passed our views to our children, with the resulting snowflake/pajama boy culture. However I admit that the only Dem I voted for was Carter (I know, I'm sorry!), and finally woke up to the idiocy of the left shortly after that.
President Trump is one of a few, along with Mark and Rush and all of us!, who might be able to stem the tide of our destruction for a little longer. I'm very pleased to see one of the effects of the current virus is to bring out the truth of the authoritarian left at all levels of government. And along with that the courage of people to begin to speak out against these terrible and stupid policies.
Bottom line is in the 60's when we weren't fully in charge, we had not achieved the position of being able to use a crisis to drive policy, so we remained at the level of basic protest. All that has changed, Hillary, the deep state, Nancy and Chuck are great examples of the result. They have been very patient with sticking to their agenda as Mark pointed out today. Almost as patient as China or our friends in the Middle East.
I think world leaders are paranoid because they know more than us (about its origin), and China's hoarding of PPE magnified that.
During the Spanish flu, there were masks, social distancing (on public transport and work places) and cancelled concerts: not very much has changed with respect to "plagues", as Mark noted elsewhere - except for universal and indefinite house arrest.
I remember having the flu at that time. I didn't know it was the Hong Kong flu, if indeed it was. I didn't see a doctor, I just suffered through it. I was just a stupid kid at the time. I didn't know anything about recessions or economics except the long lines at the gas pump and having trouble finding a job. I bet most young people are the same way today.
In 1918 they didn't have the twin totems of testing and ventilators to distract them. They were a lot more familiar with death in those days and they didn't have the promise of a vaccine to keep them from getting on with their lives.
You are being quite generous in your assessment of our world leaders.
Walt, you outlined previously all the very disruptive, freedom-limiting measures that were taken in different US cities in 1918.
The Taiwan approach is a huge improvement on that: no need for "social distancing". Nor ventilators.
Maybe you should've be in charge at the CDC in January. Maybe you were.
PS. Is PPE also a distraction?
Not really. Their incompetence led to this. It's too bad they didn't take the "paranoid" approach as in Taiwan.
My record is pretty good, certainly better than Fauci's. I commented in January that this was going to be a big deal and the Chinese were lying. I commented on the crematoria air pollution in Wuhan and was especially impressed when the Communists built those 3 hospitals in 10 days. (BTW this took some prior planning.) I have become more relaxed as the data rolled in that this was not a humanity killer.
In 1918 they ordered people with a communicable disease into quarantine, not the general population. Many theater owners and churches took measures voluntarily, not at the point of a gun. Spanish Flu was a deadlier disease even though virologists didn't "tinker" with it. I would not be surprised to learn that today's virologists are re-creating the Spanish Flu virus and giving it a little gain of function -- just to protect us.
As to being in charge, I didn't know that stopping international air travel was an option. This was the single most effective measure taken and you have to give Trump full credit for it. This action seems to have slipped into the memory hole.
PS Back at you: PPE is important for medical personnel, the immune compromised and the sick. A healthy person wearing a mask while walking in the park or driving a car is less than worthless. Our Chinese friends made sure we would have a shortage of this equipment, another mark on the scorecard. I dutifully wear my mask in public (mostly.) I am also wary and watch out for people with symptoms who look sick or who are coughing or sneezing. Sometimes I wear both a belt and suspenders. I tested negative in a random community testing program. The running score is 1 positive for every 500 negative. That seems to me to be a low ratio but I'm not in charge.
"In 1918 they ordered people with a communicable disease into quarantine, not the general population." Exactly right. Other than as a temporary last ditch mitigation strategy in the setting of a public health failure (NY and surrounds), I'm anti-lockdown and pro-Taiwan: isolate only those with the infection. I've frequently praised Trump's ban on flights from China, and his foresight in wanting to quarantine NY/NJ when cases in the region were exploding - after he'd been hamstrung for two months by incompetent bureaucrats who'd detected a total of just 15 cases nationwide in late February, and reassured the public that "... there is currently no reported community spread of #COVID19 in the US". **Absolutely staggering**. (I recall Mark mentioning countries too incompetent to know they had a problem with coronavirus, and the US was the prime example.)
With the first signs of infection inside the country's borders (noting the Spanish flu response) what would be your plan for quarantining people in 2020, if at all?
PS. The overall mortality rate for Covid-19 was always predicted to be under one percent, so yes - almost certainly less lethal than H1N1 a century ago. The disease may or may not have taken its course, and the issue of "herd immunity" effect is mere speculation; in any case, seropositivity in multiple states is around only 5%. But infections - encouragingly, for now - are declining. Perhaps there's a favourable mutation in progress. Much is still not known.
PPS. The looming medical disaster now is the impact on other patients: the hospital avoidance is not due to lockdowns, but public opinion messaging to the effect that "the elderly and unhealthy" - not the infected - should be indefinitely quarantined, ie. the initial Boris Johnson approach. The label of "nosocomial infection" has been frequently repeated in UK (conservative) commentary. And to an extent it is very true - even more so than with SARS-1 - that "the system infects you". How can that be fixed?
Also, the mitigation measures during the Spanish flu were not all voluntary, and the bans on mass gatherings and changes to transit/ work arrangements (to stagger numbers - ie. imposed "social distancing") had a significant impact. See article - "Spanish Flu Was Awful But We Moved On Anyway" - Vincent Geloso. April 14, 2020 - AIER:
"The monthly U.S. data on industrial production and commercial activity suggest a drop of between 16% and 25% from July 1918 to March 1919. To put this in perspective, this is equivalent in terms of rapidity to the drop observed during the first four years of the Great Depression."
PS. "I dutifully wear my mask in public (mostly.) I am also wary and watch out for people with symptoms who look sick or who are coughing or sneezing." I feel sad and angry when I read this, and when I see people out and about who have to wear masks to protect themselves from others. There's China's criminality, but there's also the issue of the failure of government bureaucracies.
"...ISIS/Taliban policies on music."
I take it that the well-educated youngsters at Mediaite have never ever not even once heard The Clash song "Rock the Casbah" (1982)?
Cuz, er, that's what it's about, so...
What a treat to hear the show here! Thanks!