Nothing Makes Sense

Government Logic

I read in Sunday’s paper that the number of days over 100 degrees has now tied that of 1928. I know the reason for this year’s heat wave is climate change, aka global warming, and everybody knows climate change is driven by carbon emissions. At least that is what our governor has made us believe. He even sponsored a state law to tax carbon emissions. It was voted down, partly because it would create a state agency to determine how many emissions each of us produces and would cost us much more than it is worth. But I digress. Back to the headline. I am astounded at the number of people who believe everything they read. I’m just not built that way. I was encouraged by my father to question everything. Thus, when I read the headline, I immediately asked what caused the heat wave in 1928. If carbon emissions caused the 2021 heat wave, what caused the heat wave of 1928 when activities that emit carbon were far fewer than they are now? Our President has repeatedly told us to trust the science, but unless science can explain what caused the heat wave before the world began spewing carbon into the atmosphere, I cannot trust it. Science is not supposed to leave loose ends.

My father drilled into me that the world is a logical place. If something doesn’t seem to make sense, it is either wrong, or we don’t know enough to fit all the pieces together. When all the data is available, however, logic prevails. Our government, both at state and federal levels repeatedly asks us to trust them. Government knows what is best for us. If that were true, however, there would be no loose ends in the logic. Take the recent response to the Delta variant as an example. For months we have been encouraged to mask up and get vaccinated. I determined early in the pandemic that masks were not the panacea our elected elite would have us believe. States with strict mask mandates had the same rates of infection as open states. If their logic was correct, the CDC should have been able to predict future outbreaks. The opposite was true, however, and the gloom and doom predictions by the CDC didn’t come to pass. Something was wrong with the logic. Mask mandates didn’t seem to matter. Now after months of government sponsored advertisements in the media, we are told we are can still catch the delta strain of the virus even if we are fully vaccinated. Nancy Pelosi advised several months ago we should wear masks to show we care about our neighbors. Now should we get vaccinated to show our concern for our fellow man?

I watched a segment on the six o’clock news the other day wherein a group of health care professionals were interviewed and asked why they remained unvaccinated. The answers kind of bounced all over the place until the commentator asked if they trusted the CDC. The answer was immediate and unanimous. “No!” The CDC has become political and dependent on political favor for funds.

President Biden still offers the mantra that masks and vaccines will stop the spread of COVID 19. He seems perplexed that 40% of all Americans are not running down to their local pharmacy to be vaccinated. He doesn’t seem to understand that his government has done little to inspire confidence in the truthfulness of what they tell us. Why doesn’t our government do an unbiased assessment of climate change to include the reasons for other historical warming and cooling periods. Until they do, I can’t blame our current trend on carbon emissions. Our government needs to unhinge themselves from the CDC and fund some unbiased research into the proper response to this virus. Until they do, we will continue within this could of misinformation and mistrust.

Frank Watson is a retired Air Force Colonel and long-time resident of Eastern Washington. He has been a free-lance columnist for over 20 years.