Swine Flu a ‘National Emergency’

Posted October 24, 2009, 9:35 p.m.

So, President Barack Obama (D) has declared that the ‘H1N1’ virus, known colloquially as ‘swine flu’, is a national health emergency (in addition to already being a pandemic). I kid you not.

More than 1,000 people have died in the United States from the flu so far, which is about 1/36th the number of people who die from the regular flu in a regular year. Some early indications are that this flu season is a bit worse than usual, but I have seen no evidence whatsoever that this flu warrants half the attention it’s gotten. In fact, I have yet to see any facts presented by anybody that might indicate this flu is any worse than the regular old flu.

And guess what, regular flu ain’t that bad. It’s a virus, and it’s unpleasant, but unless you have a weakened immune system or are very young or old it’s pretty harmless.

I said it before: the government owes us an explanation. Why all the hysteria over a virus that, by all accounts, is just a minor variant of the regular flu and poses no serious risk to most people?

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

Mankind must remember that peace is not God’s gift to his creatures, it is our gift to each other.

You cannot plumb the depths of the human heart, nor find out what a man is thinking; how do you expect to search out God, who made all these things, and find out his mind or comprehend his thought?

Liberty therefore can only subsist, where the powers of government are properly divided, and where the different jurisdictions are inviolably kept distinct and separate.

The neurotic always wishes people would let him alone—until they do.

It took man thousands of years to put words down on paper, and his lawyers still wish he wouldn’t.

A tax, in the general understanding of the term, and as used in the Constitution, signifies an exaction for the support of the Government. The word has never been thought to connote the expropriation of money from one group for the benefit of another.

I am the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.

I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one. . . . [But] from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

The ancient world did in fact experience the birth of Christianity as a liberation from the fear of demons that, in spite of skepticism and enlightenment, was all-pervasive at the time.

But rulers have the same propensities as other men; they are as likely to use the power with which they are vested, for private purposes, and to the injury and oppression of those over whom they are placed. . . .

Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion.

Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

The knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience: what the virgin Eve bound through her disbelief, Mary loosed by her faith.

One of the pressures on governments . . . is to ‘do something’—even when there is nothing they can do that is likely to make things better and much that they can do that will risk making things worse.

Arrogance and reproach have now become strong; it is a time of ruin and furious anger. Now, my children, show zeal for the law, and give your lives for the covenant of our fathers.

Let us not forget that unity is a symptom of life; disunion is decay, a sure sign of being a corpse.

If any one teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching which accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit, he knows nothing. . . .

All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called ‘facts.’ They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.

Corporations (and other associations) do not have liberty and property rights because they are ‘people,’ but because they are created, managed, and controlled by people.