A Coronavirus Miscellany: Statistics, Science and the Libertarian Sceptics

We're now in the midst of a week that was predicted to be Pearl Harbor and 9/11 all rolled into one. Deaths hit nearly 2,000 as of yesterday (7 April) but thus far the claims haven't quite matched reality. The media continues to argue that combined deaths in New York and New Jersey have now passed 9/11, a sobering statistic which is true but the cataclysm that was forecast, just hasn't quite panned out.

This is not to make light of the deaths that have occurred nor do I mean to give any credence to those dismissing Covid-19 as an overblown hoax.

It's not a hoax and despite those who have attempted to politicise the virus, its initiation and spread is not some plot on the part of this or that party. It's not a result of emissions from 5G network towers, which while probably harmful (and even wicked in some respects) cannot be connected to a respiratory virus. And Covid-19 is not part of some plot to take out Boris Johnson. If certain members within the Establishment wished to remove him it's far more likely they would choose something other than a virus which barely even affects 85-90% of the people who test positive.

There are Libertarian sectors that continue to question the veracity of the virus. Their commentaries focus on the ages of those who have died. They attack (admitted) discrepancies in the statistics and continue to insist the whole thing is more or less a hoax geared toward either the destruction of society or is some kind of mass social experiment meant to push us into some kind of dystopian-totalitarian socialist future.

The unofficially Ron Paul-connected LewRockwell.com has been aggressively pushing this line and has even linked to material published at The Corbett Report. LewRockwell has some good authors and while as a Christian I take grave exception to the assumptions and anthropology of Libertarianism, there are nevertheless some occasional thought-provoking articles. Their economics are bankrupt on multiple fronts but there are some good critiques of the social order, collectivised thinking and US foreign policy. Speaking in broad strokes, they (like their Marxist antagonists) have no moral or functional solutions and there are deep problems with their understanding of history, law, economics and how these things interact with Christianity, but there are some occasional examples of interesting analysis. Of course I would say the same when it comes to something like the Trotskyist World Socialist Website (WSW).  I frequent both websites.

Corbett has actually produced some decent materials over the years but there's been a noticeable decline in his analysis and ability to grasp the big picture. I all but wrote him off some time ago but would still check in on his site from time to time. For me the final straw was when he started suggesting that Jeffrey Epstein is in fact still alive. While I certainly reject the official story surrounding his death, the Corbett model continues to strain credulity and even simple reason.

He's fallen into a mental trap, a kind of Manichaean struggle of the rugged libertarian individual vs. the state which represents not just a necessary evil but an absolutised evil. An over-simplistic and sometimes ill-informed view of the world wed to a coherentist-driven assumption of a grand master conspiracy results in a worldview which posits all events and all phenomena are essentially orchestrated and manufactured. It's strange because the power-elite Leviathan is granted the almost god-like powers it wishes it had but doesn't actually possess.

There are evil people in the world and there certainly are conspiracies and cover-ups and yet even those atop the circles of power are not able to micromanage all events.

Will some very evil people use the present pandemic to promote their agendas and grab even more power? Of course and we should be vigilant, but the monistic structure represented by someone like Corbett cannot account for the factional warfare and real conflict within the circles of power, not to mention the backstabbing, reversals and sudden changes of allegiance. In the case of someone like Epstein, he would hardly be the first person whose fall from power resulted in elimination.

The Libertarian view and the analysis presented by figures such as James Corbett can at times prove interesting but should be taken with a grain of salt. In the end their thinking is sub-Christian at best and in other cases it represents a complete rejection of not only Christian anthropology and questions of sin and the will but also of basic Christian ethics vis-à-vis self-conduct, society and even the ominous bestial state.

The numbers, statistics and reasoning of the virus-hoaxers cannot account for what has happened in places like Spain, Italy and New York City. Hospital units and health care systems are being stressed to the breaking point. Do thousands die of flu? Yes, they do but not at these percentages and in such concentrations, let alone at this pace. I'm afraid some of the nurses in Queens would probably fly across the table and give Corbett a good thumping if they were put in the same room. Are the ward nurses in on the hoax too?

That said, it is legitimate to ask if this has been overblown? In some respects it probably has been and yet the truth is there are still many unknowns. While there's a push to trust in 'facts' and 'science' the truth is there's much the scientific and medical authorities don't know. They cannot properly account for the disease's origins, the nature of its transmission or why it has been so unevenly distributed. Nor can they explain its course, why some people have no symptoms and others quickly die. Additionally there is growing concern over the effects of cumulative exposure, something that might account for urban concentrations and yet such a theory still cannot account for the fact that the disease hasn't 'taken off' in parts of California for example. There's a growing concern for health workers that are repeatedly exposed. This suggests a virus that's qualitatively different than the normal 'bugs' we encounter. And to this day, I am still unclear with regard to the question of re-infection. There doesn't seem to be a consensus.

So should we be sceptical of the scientists and their facts? Yes, because in reality they're not facts but working theories and in many cases they're wrestling with multiple unknown variables. Be sceptical but don't just ignore and contemptuously dismiss what they're saying or what's happening.

I don't believe that there are thousands of doctors, health workers, city officials and others in on some kind of grand conspiracy, the great socialist plot feared by so many. I am even less convinced when those who suggest as much lack a basic conception of what capitalism and socialism actually are, let alone the realities of these systems within history. While Pelosi, Cuomo and others are evil (as are Trump, Pence and Pompeo), I don't believe they have some desire to destroy the US system and bring down its economy. And yet, that's what I keep hearing.

Yes, we all have to die in this fallen world and in that context it's not terribly shocking for an 80 year old to die but this is a kind of blind willfulness that refuses to understand what's happening.  

The aggravation is that if the numbers of dead end up being a lot lower than projected, then it will (seemingly) give credence to the naysayers and those who claim it's all fake. They seem to think that trotting out cancer and car accident figures makes their case. Such appeals only conclusively demonstrate that they still don't understand what is happening. And yet (assuming the reduced numbers scenario happens), were the death figures low due to the fake and overblown nature of the pandemic or were they low due to the aggressive measures taken by the state? Do the lower than expected numbers reveal a hoax or do they represent a partially successful policy?

It would seem that we're also reaching a turning point in the realm of alternative media and within the more sober expressions of what many reckon conspiracy circles. I am of course not speaking of the rank hacks and charlatans like Alex Jones. Even when he speaks truth it is always contextualised within a framework of sensationalised falsehood and thus I can safely say his words and materials are an utter waste of time and for some are just plain harmful and destructive.

The saddest aspect of all this is that the virus is being politicised and while the hard-line Libertarians possess little actual power they exert a great deal of influence and both the GOP and the Christian Right have been deeply affected by their thoughts and paradigms. While on the one hand we have Christian leaders that are quick to bow and capitulate to the state we have others that have drunk from these poisoned wells and have put a theological spin on Libertarian categories. This is both erroneous and dangerous. Lives are under threat and souls are imperiled.