 |
| Washington |
At some point, very far in the future – long after President Donald Trump has been replaced in office by Joe Biden – some dispassionate and truly objective journalist will write an essay on the Coronavirus political myth; that is to say, the way politicians used the Coronavirus pandemic to feather their political nests. Pre-Biden, during the Trump relapse, such brave journalism would have been regarded by approximately 90 percent of the media as reckless and unwise.
This imaginary journalist will regard certain grammatical
formulations as treacherous and logical impossibilities. Take, by way of
example, any line common in Associated Press reports attributing business
slowdowns anywhere in the nation to Coronavirus.
Coronavirus is not a person; therefore, it cannot be the efficient cause of the many shutdowns that, in Connecticut, have made a wasteland of Hartford, the state’s Capital city.
These shutdowns were caused by Democrat Governor Ned Lamont,
operating in accordance with his extraordinary -- read: extra-constitutional -- powers. His emergency powers, recently extended for another 6 months, were
conferred upon Lamont by members of his party who control, and have controlled
for nearly a half century, Connecticut’s General Assembly, which has not
assembled at the state Capital for about a half year. The business of the state
for this period of time has been conducted by what this writer elsewhere has
called a rump legislature. Lamont has been operating for half a year as plenary
governor, as have most governors in the northeast, including St. Andrew Cuomo,
the Governor of New York.
When Lamont said restaurants shall be closed, they were
closed. When he said restaurants shall be open, provided they service only half
their usual clientele, the thing was done. When he reversed his own strictures,
gravitating between two-thirds open and half open, or when he rented out his
own plenary powers to municipal heath agencies, so that appointed rather
than elected politicians serving on boards would be able to shut down or enact crippling fines on restaurants not in compliance with his ever-shifting policy prescriptions,
everyone jumped through his hoops.
Oops, sorry -- actually, the General Assembly has been shut
down by Democrat leaders in the General Assembly, who are not a virus. A virus can only "shutdown" a General Assembly by carrying off to Valhalla a large proportion of legislators which, thank God, has not happened.
While we are on the point of thanking God, a common practice
among politicians during Thanksgiving, some of my out-of-state relatives, unapproachable because of gubernatorial travel restrictions, have reminded me that
there is no mention of God in Lamont’s gloomy and dour Thanksgiving
proclamation.
It would be “an act of supererogation,” one says, for Lamont
to mention God in his Thanksgiving proclamation. “Not even God has the power in
Connecticut to make a wasteland of the state’s Capital city. It is impossible to imagine God
shutting down the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, so that music lovers would be
deprived of the consolation of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor.”
Lamont’s policies are responsible for such closures. And he,
along with Cuomo and other confederate Democrat governors in the northeast, seems truly to believe that the rest of us worshiping at political altars should
be thankful for his contributions to democratic government.
The first Thanksgiving proclamation
was offered by President George Washington, who knew very well to Whom the
nation should be grateful for its many blessings – hint, not George Washington.
Whereas it is the duty
of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will,
to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and
favor—and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee
requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public
thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts
the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an
opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and
happiness.”
Now therefore I do
recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by
the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who
is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that
will be—
The Supreme Court most recently rapped Cuomo on the knuckles
for having short-sheeted the inescapably clear religious clause of the First
Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of
religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The court having risen to
its constitutional obligation, Cuomo and others blustered that the court had
become far too conservative, the remedy for which was at hand – pack the court.
As a general rule, modern politicians, who think all blessings flow from their hands, lack the requisite humility,
manners, courage and good sense to thank God – their competitor -- for any of His blessings – even on
Thanksgiving.
Comments