Fauci's Foul Ball

This is a transcript from my radio show. You can listen live right now by clicking here.

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Dr. Fauci says he doesn't know if we'll be able to meet for Christmas this year. We will. He rejects the assumption that someone might get COVID or could get COVID and be hospitalized or die. He says that we shouldn't be thinking in those terms. You know, I've tried to be reasonable about COVID. I've tried to keep up with the data. I've changed my mind on things along the way as the data has changed and I've tried to explain to you why. In fact, to some degree, I think I have done a better job with my audience of explaining the twists and turns as things have changed and the virus has mutated than I think some of the bureaucrats, including Dr. Fauci have done with the public.

There's an additional point that I think Dr. Fauci hasn't come to terms with yet. COVID isn't actually going to go away. It's going to become flu-like, which a lot of scientists think actually came from the Spanish flu. The flu was not really a thing before then, and now it's a thing every year. Get your flu shot. I used to never get the flu shot because I'm one of the people that it makes me feel really bad after I get it so I try not to get it. But more and more with my wife's health, I feel obligated to get the flu shot.

A lot of years it works, there but many years I've still caught the flu after getting the flu shot. The reason for this is they kind of guess which strains are going to be the dominant and they build their vaccine around the strains they think are going to be the most common. They sometimes they get it wrong. Regardless, we deal with the flu every year. We're going to deal with COVID every year as well.

David French had a piece over the weekend that was fairly well-received by people across the board. One of the things he quoted is the Westminster Larger Catechism. Now, for those of you who don't know, just a very brief tangential history lesson. The Westminster Divines were the group of people who really started what became known as Presbyterianism. They come up with their statement of faith and their Larger and Shorter Catechism. If you are in the Presbyterian church, you are bound to the Westminster Confession of Faith next to scripture. It's not the word of God, it's not an inerant, but it is great. Particularly, if you're in a conservative Presbyterian church, you are bound by the tenets of the Westminster Confession of Faith as much as you are scripture. And with that Confession of Faith comes a catechism. I want to read to you what David put in his piece

Let’s take, for example, something as simple as the Ninth Commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” That’s not just a command. It’s a way of living. The Westminster Larger Catechism states our obligations powerfully. Read this in light of our modern political discourse (emphasis added):

The duties required in the ninth commandment are, the preserving and promoting of truth between man and man, and the good name of our neighbor, as well as our own; appearing and standing for the truth; and from the heart, sincerely, freely, clearly, and fully, speaking the truth, and only the truth, in matters of judgment and justice, and in all other things whatsoever; a charitable esteem of our neighbors; loving, desiring, and rejoicing in their good name; sorrowing for, and covering of their infirmities; freely acknowledging of their gifts and graces, defending their innocency; a ready receiving of a good report, and unwillingness to admit of an evil report, concerning them; discouraging talebearers, flatterers, and slanderers; love and care of our own good name, and defending it when need requireth; keeping of lawful promises; studying and practicing of whatsoever things are true, honest, lovely, and of good report.

Yeah, we all fall short of that one sometimes, don't we? So I read you that because some of you can condemn me based on that what I'm about to say about Anthony Fauci. There's a movie coming out about him. There's been the HBO series. There've been the TV profiles, the magazine profiles. Part of me wonders if this otherwise anonymous bureaucrat at the end of his career is really loving the press attention and therefore making himself indispensable and therefore saying things in such a way that keep him from having to exit the stage.

COVID is not going away. It's not. We're not going to end it. We're not going to eradicate it. We're not going to abolish it. For Anthony Fauci to say that he just refuses to accept the idea of people getting COVID, well, what about flu? What about the common cold? What about all of the other sicknesses that people are getting. You have you've given up on them, but not on COVID? It's time buddy, to accept that COVID is no longer pandemic, it's endemic to society. It's going to stay around in various forms, mutating along the way, and it's time for us to figure out ways to accommodate it instead of living in fear of it. The idea that it's too soon to say if families can get together at Christmas, let me tell you, you're going to get together with your family at Christmas.

The number of people who are living by fear is absurd. I saw a guy I follow on Twitter say that his Little League son is playing baseball right now and they are requiring the kids wear masks in the dugout. Elementary school boys to wear masks in an outside dugout when playing baseball. The science begs to differ. The science continually begs to differ with what a lot of these people are saying. The science at this point, begs to differ with Dr. Fauci. COVID's not going away. At some point you, not Dr. Fauci, but you have to figure out your acceptable level of risk. For some people it's low and for some people it's high. But you've got to now understand that we're not getting rid of this virus and if we're not getting rid of this virus and we're not going to live at home in fear, we're going to have to take reasonable steps not spread it.

We now know that masks can reduce it by about 10%. If everybody wears masks and we're not talking about the cloth ones, we're talking about the surgical masks. Is it worth it to require all of us at a time it's receding to wear a mask that has minimalist results? I would would argue that back when we knew very little about it and they changed their guidance on mask, that yes, as hospitals were being overwhelmed and we didn't have enough resources, yeah, 10% was a big deal. At this point, it's not. Merck now has a medicine that can reduce by 50% hospitalizations and deaths if taken early. It's like Tamiflu for COVID. So why are we all still freaked out?

You and I aren't freaking out, but there are so many people who are. I was in Delaware over the weekend to give a speach and none of us were masked. Old, young, none of us wore masks. I stayed at a Western hotel in Delaware. You know, we're so used to blue states being freaked out, the lady at the desk she couldn't have cared less if I wore a mask. Nobody in the hotel was wearing a mask and you hear about the blue states are so overwhelmed. I mentioned this and they say, well, it depends on where you are in Delaware. In some parts of the state, the really liberal parts of the state, people really freak out if you're not wearing a mask.

I saw a guy, I think it was Matt Walsh from Daily Wire was saying he was in DC, walking down the road and someone yelled at him to wear a mask and he yelled back no, and kept walking. But there are a lot of people out there who are living their lives by fear and Fauci to a degree is perpetuating the fear and concern and it keeps him relevant. At this point, I think he's undermining the cause. He's undermining the case. We could have decent, reasonable, proactive policy about COVID that are designed not to scare the bejesus out of people, if we want it. We don't seem as a nation to want that. We want people living in fear. It's easier to control them if they live in fear. This is the important point: there are people who want to live in fear. There are people who want to be afraid.

There are people who can't let go of the fear. To some degree, the fear empowers them, it emboldens them to make choices they otherwise would not make to say, I'm not coming to the office. I'm going to stay home. I'm going to wear the mask. You should too. The fear makes them feel powerful. Now it's just dividing us. It's not helpful. I would submit to you it is no longer helpful for Anthony Fauci to go on television and talk, period. I would also submit to you, it is no longer useful or helpful for Anthony Fauci if he does go on television to say things like, well too soon to tell if we're going to be able to see each other for Christmas. I would tell you, it's not helpful for Anthony Fauci at this point to take a COVID zero position because COVID is never now going to go to zero.

I'm not living in fear over a freaking virus anymore. So get out there and live your life instead of waiting for a federal bureaucrat to tell you if you and your family can get together for Christmas. If you're living your life that way, you have become an absurd person.