A journal of the plague year – quarantined

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. Today¹ I will be talking about the virus, the plague that we are all worried about. The virus that occupies much of our time 24/7. We think constantly of ways to avoid it, and ways to lessen its effects, if we are unable to avoid it.

The quarantine continues

I am working from home this week as I have been ordered here by a decree from Caesar. He has decreed that we must all return to our place of domicile in order that we may be registered. The other members of my law firm are also obeying the decree to stay home. But we struggle to meet the needs of clients anyway and to keep the firm operating under these plague conditions. For me this is Day 7 of life in quarantine, or Castles Held Hostage Day 7. Joan and I are in a high-risk group in that we are both over 65 years of age. But fortunately we are in good health otherwise, and we have strong immune systems. Strong enough, time will tell I suppose.

Quarantine gives way to cruel triage

I read an article in a newspaper the other day. It reported that doctors in Italy have been ordered to deny the use of respirators to anyone over 60. So, the triage has begun at least in Italy. Socialist bureaucrats order doctors to ration life saving treatments and they decide whose life is valuable enough to save. Will similar people make decisions of who lives and who dies? My guess is that soon people will make such decisions for Americans without their consent. Michael Bloomberg told us in a moment of honesty that Socialist, free-for-all health systems would not be affordable otherwise. The dirty triage may be coming to America, and if so, we will all scramble for scarce resources. Could we also come to realize that not even the Fed can supply everything and certainly not for free?

Life in quarantine

For me, life goes on each day in quarantine. It is certainly odd not to see my staff and the clients each day. But we still have teleconference and video when necessary. I am grateful for a video conversation with my daughter stuck on the other side of the world unable to return for who knows how long. We hope and pray that the internet continues to operate so that we can have these video conversations with her. Because if the internet goes down or power is off, we lose contact with her. We talk to relatives and friends from around the country each day anxious to hear if they are OK. How are you we ask? Do you feel OK? Are you coughing or do you have a fever? Are you confined in your home as we are? Do you have enough food?

Origin of quarantine

I ask myself what the term quarantine means, and where did it come from? My research reveals that the word is from a Latin word that means 40. So, to quarantine originally meant to confine for 40 days. In the Black Plague years, when a ship arrived, the crew would be in quarantine for 40 days. If not sick, they would be released but the ship would be burned. I imagine the rats which carried the disease in their fleas escaped occasionally. 14 days or even 30 days is better than 40. So we hope, and we pray that it is of short duration.

The media don’t want the quarantine to end…

The President hopes that it ends soon because he recently said in one of his news conferences that he hopes and believes that America can get back to work by Easter. Americans are anxious to get back to work and we think we can get the country rolling again by Easter. What’s wrong with that statement that anyone could take issue with? According to The New York Times and Washington Post, everything is wrong with it. I suppose it doesn’t fit their narrative whereby we are destroyed, then saved by Democrats. Their headlines announcing what he said were:

1. Trump wants to reopen country despite warnings, and
2. Once again, Trump breaks with public health experts.

…so they won’t make an honest report

I suppose the thought of reporting it differently did not enter their editors’ heads. How about saying something like this: The President wants to reopen the economy by Easter, which is April 12 on the Christian calendar? That is a noble ambition and we wish him all the best with it. Perhaps he knows something we do not know. Or perhaps he is trying to create optimism in the country. It doesn’t seem like a realistic goal to us, but we will wait and hope for the best.

The hydroxychloroquine controversy

Another example of the same thing would be the President’s statement that the drug hydroxychloroquine seemed to be helping. Thus he would order the fast track production of it allowing the manufacturers to cut some red tape. It’s currently under test for Covid-19 use, and many doctors report that it seems effective. Many patients report that it saved their lives. Most of us would say those are good things and we should permit it to be used. But The New York Times reported that he wants to use “an unproven drug”. I wonder how many people would have to die of Covid-19 pneumonia before they accepted it as proven.

Using the quarantine to change election law…

Democrats in the House and Senate, united as one, held up the proposed 2 trillion dollars in relief aid for a couple of weeks. Because they demanded Republican destroying provisions, as well as a Green New Deal wish list. Whether you are against the 2 trillion dollar relief package because the money doesn’t exist is a different issue from what I’m talking about. Democrats added to the aid package a re-write of election laws including:

The election cheat’s wish list

1. No effective Voter I.D., especially in early voting and in absentee voting. No I.D. to vote at all, not even a social security number, except possibly the last four digits.
2. Same day as the election registration, which would take away any chance to verify information.
3. Special ballot harvesting provisions, especially on tribal lands. That’s a process whereby one person can turn in the ballots for a whole group of people. Anyone can turn in the voter’s ballot, including voting by mail.
4. The last election corrupting scheme is a new election auditing process making it virtually impossible to uncover the fraud.
5. Amnesty for DACA (Dreamers) aliens.

To say nothing of the Green New Deal

Most people can see that these provisions are not to make elections fairer and more open. They exist to destroy the concept of citizenship and to build, through a Democrat-created demographic change in the country, a permanent Democrat majority. There is also a long list of Green New Deal items that I won’t list.² But these are obviously not intended to help sick people either.

The quarantine is bankrupting people and businesses

Nancy Pelosi finally saw that she could not win and changed her mind and allowed the measure to pass. So, we might have some money to help some sick people. Many industries are failing completely and have closed. Furthermore, many companies will end in bankruptcy court without government help. We the Taxpayers must bail out failing companies, but what if they fail, so what, who cares? The workers care because jobs go with them. And without jobs people can’t pay taxes or buy the things that other businesses make.

An excuse for bad business management and bad investment?

Considering everything I have said so far, where do I think we are headed as a country? Are we headed down a 2 trillion dollar road to Zimbabwe? It’s not really 2 trillion though because the country is already on track for a 1 trillion plus deficit this fiscal year and this will add two to that. Could the real purpose of the bailout be to keep bad managers and gamblers from getting what they deserve, and instead give them what they want by covering their losses with taxpayer labor or is that just an interesting side benefit? In fairness to the government and the Federal Reserve, however, in 2008 only the banks needed a bailout. Now it is the entire economy.

The Boeing controversy

Let me give you just one example and that is Boeing. The company we call Boeing is an iconic company. They built the B-17 and the B-29 that devastated Germany and Japan and helped win World War II. I received warning about that company many years ago, that its civilian division was vulnerable to a single crash. Crash a military plane and investors understand but a civilian airliner is different.

Boeing is yesterday’s message…

Boeing recently suffered two horrendous crashes of their new 737 Max. My impression is that the 737-max is just an attempt to hold on to old technology instead of investing in new ideas like other companies do. They used their billions in profits to buy back stock, thus driving company stock to over 400. Now it stands at less than 100. The Boeing CEO resigned after taking his bonus. Now the taxpayers must save the thousands of jobs with billions of their money. Boeing, a great iconic company driven to the brink of bankruptcy by terrible management, followed by the economy destroying virus.³

The best quarantine news available: from the President

Perhaps a second scenario that demonstrates the political hypocrisy of it all is that the President meets every day with the crisis team to discuss what they are doing, and what the problems are, and then he has a news conference to tell us. That’s a good thing, right? I mean its transparency that we always say we want. His news conference features the people he relies on for advice, so we know where he gets it. We also see firsthand each day his crisis leadership and how people are responding to it. That all sounds like a good thing to me and I’m sure it does to most people.

But his opponents call them campaign rallies. Say what?

Not to Democrats it doesn’t. The problem for Democrats, regarding the daily news conferences, is that they are attracting very high ratings. Lots and lots of Americans are watching, and learning. Democrats seem to hate learning, and love the dark word, censorship. They want to censor the President so that we can’t see him at work. His news conference is just a campaign rally they say.⁴ That’s certainly how Democrats would use the crisis, I suppose. But I don’t think that’s what he uses the news conferences for. I watch each day. But I’m not interested in campaign rallies. I’m not interested in Democrat censorship of news either. I suppose they would be happy it he only spoke to The New York Times and Washington Post. They could interpret what he said and relay it to us.

If the quarantine does not end…

Finally, Folks, what does the future hold for us? God knows the future, not me, but some things seem rather obvious. The music that drives all those new cars and new houses times millions or billions worldwide is about to stop. It really isn’t an illusion that drives economies, it’s sales. That’s the only music economies listen to. When the music stops factories close. Then things aren’t made and bought by others. Wages can’t be paid, bills can’t be paid, mortgages and rent can’t be paid. When these things happen millions will be in bankruptcy. Then the Federal Government will face a terrible choice, but that’s another story for another time.

At least that’s the way I see it.

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle.

About the image

“Isolation wards, Quarantine camp” by Drregor is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Editor’s Notes

1 The author gave this as a radio address on Friday 27 March 2020. Events might have overtaken some of his remarks. – Ed.

2 One can find the Green New Deal FAQ here. The Pelosi bill listed new taxes on many of the things Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wished to obsolesce. That the Speaker would introduce such provisions is a sea change for her.

3 It gets worse. Boeing’s Starliner, their answer to Crew Dragon by SpaceX, suffers from cost overruns and failures from sheer carelessness. Many of the careless errors are of the same kind that brought down two airliners and killed hundreds of people. Yet NASA gives Boeing passes they will not give to the new, dynamic SpaceX.

4 Rachel Maddow at MSNBC has explicitly called for news organs to stop relaying these press conferences to the people. Several mainstream media organs have followed her advice. But this same Rachel Maddow actually said not to expect USNS Comfort in New York Harbor for several weeks. Then the Comfort steamed in ten days later.