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Once again, I have this sense of change in the air. I want to jot down my thoughts so that I can look back and judge how attuned my senses are or are not. I’ll jot them down publicly to help keep me honest.

At some point over the last couple of days, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial anticipating an end of the big corona freakout. A somewhat less reputable source published that Spain is adjusting its public health stance to treat the “novel” virus as it would any other seasonal cold and flu wave. Social media chatter, never a reliable source for anything, seems to be challenging the deeply held beliefs about virus mitigation strategies. Details aside, there is no doubt that we are seeing shifts towards stances (e.g. the Great Barrington Declaration) that the promulgation of which, even only a couple of months ago, would have resulted in bans from the likes Facebook, Twitter, and (perhaps) WordPress.

One of a series of posters spotted in the streets of NYC and DC. Photo from https://twitter.com/LeighWolf/status/1482408194957889537

These days, even the Sacred Vaccinated are getting the ‘rona. AOC got the ‘rona. Heck, I just had the ‘rona, myself. As the illness (and specifically a far-less dangerous strain of that illness) transforms into something that most of us have dealt with and came through just fine, it becomes harder and harder to sustain a pervasive fear of the unknowable possibilities. I can tell you that my perspective has changed. I’ll also have to admit that it might have as much to do with this “shift” that I think I’m seeing as anything.

The Journal article tied Boris Johnson’s partygate troubles to the ‘rona crisis and the official government reaction in the UK. The essence of the argument is that people are a) fed up with government restrictions and overreactions and b) having doubts about the basis for why they were told to do everything over the last two years. Although some did not, many (if not most) of us accepted it all willingly. We were willing to sacrifice for the greater good if that is what it took. And sacrifice we did. The majority of the population has suffered some kind of physical or mental impact over the last two years. A subset of us sacrificed far more. Some saw the businesses which they built over a lifetime lost to shutdowns or the subsequent cratering of the economy. Some dutifully stayed isolated and missed the chance to speak to their mother one last time before she died. Many died in the NY nursing homes as a result of known government malfeasance.

We probably should shoulder some of the blame ourselves, but nobody really likes to do that.

We might also blame “the government” or “the system,” but that’s not so far removed from blaming ourselves. After all, we chose to listen to what the government told us to do. We repeated their instructions for recalcitrant friends and pressured our neighbors into compliance. “I don’t wear this mask for me, I wear it for you,” we repeated. Were we wrong to do so? Do we want to contemplate our own failure?

Wouldn’t it be easier if we could just heap all of our angst upon an individual. We could find ourselves someone who failed us, all of us, on multiple levels. Boris Johnson, in the UK, probably made some bad policy choices. He also made some bad, and hypocritical, personal choices – attending parties even while ordering his citizenry to be locked away in their homes. It gives the people of the UK the opportunity to complain about anything and everything while pointing their fingers at someone specific – someone who clearly deserves it. As Johnson falls to earth, the WSJ explains, the government can quietly shift policy to something that will be sustainable into the future.

In the U.S., the same article predicts, it will be Fauci who will be offered up as a sacrifice. His feet will be an even more appropriate place to lay all the failures of the past few years, in a way that doesn’t threaten the government as a whole. Nobody can be blamed for listening to the experts, right? If someone has mislead us by claiming moral, ethical, and intellectual superiority, surely it is that leader who is solely to blame for the results of his own failures?

There is something else important implied by that article, though. Without some kind of reckoning, we may not be able to move forward. By my interpretation, there really are sins that our governments have committed against us. If Fauci isn’t thrown under the bus, people are going to continue to look for some kind of action to make things right. One might surmise that avoiding the scapegoat approach – actually solving what is wrong with our institutions – would be healthier in the long term. One may also grant that this is the more disruptive, chaotic, and even dangerous approach in the short term.

I also find myself inclined to make a list of those “truths” which are acceptable today that would have been considered “misinformation” in the very near past. Again, I want to jot these things down to see how they hold up against the test of time. Such an exercise might be best saved for a separate entry.