Commentary: Governor’s lockdown orders ineffective against outbreak

It has been nearly two months since I issued my personal challenge to Governor Jay Inslee, Attorney General Robert Ferguson and all elected officials in the state of Washington, to forgo their paychecks/salary until the governor rescinds his COVID-19 lockdown orders. Weirdly, I have not heard a peep from the governor, the AG or any of my fellow elected officials. My hope was that if our elected officials weren’t being paid it would motivate them to quickly find a way to end the lockdown and open up our state.

I am reminded of the example of our Founding Fathers: they did not receive compensation or salaries when they created our republic. They paid for their own travel to and from Philadelphia and their expenses while there to work and create our government. They called it “public service” and didn’t expect compensation. Boy, we are a far cry from those days, the days when courageous leaders led by example and self-sacrifice. Those great men were doggedly patriotic, motivated only by the unselfish desire to create a country and government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

Today, Governor Inslee and his blue-state sycophants say things like, “I’m so proud of all Washingtonians. We are all in this together and we will all fight this pandemic together.” Really? If that is so, Governor Inslee and all my elected brethren, I ask only a simple question: why don’t you match your actions with your words and decline your salary in order to simply show your support and solidarity with the citizens of our state, who have lost their jobs or businesses because of the governor’s lockdown orders?

Governor Inslee will never admit that he could be wrong or that his lockdown orders have been ineffective in dealing with the COVID outbreak. Good leadership acknowledges and listens to different points of view and considers contrary scientific research/data. Not our governor. Governor lnslee issued his proclamation, saying, “I’m following the science.” It has been his go-to line for 12 months. The mainstream media and his political supporters unquestioningly follow along like Pavlov’s dog. The media (the Fourth Estate) is the Fourth Joke.

One thing I hear from people in my county, Grant, is that the governor does not listen to or care about us. “He sits in his mansion in Olympia, drawing his salary, protected by his security detail (all paid for by taxpayers), issuing orders that really don’t affect him personally.” People resent and don’t respect leaders who don’t sacrifice or have “skin in the game.”

In the history of pandemics, dating back to the Spanish flu of 1918 and all the subsequent influenza-type outbreaks to our present COVlD situation, no country had ever ordered a national lockdown/quarantine of its healthy citizens. The first country to do so was China, by its communist dictator, Xi Jinping, whom Governor Inslee has publicly supported. The Chinese Communist Party ordered a full “lockdown’’ of Wuhan Province/China. Of course, communist countries can do this. If their people object or oppose such orders, they are silenced, shot or placed in concentration camps.

Both the WHO and the CDC website, as late as October 2019, stated that “lockdowns should not be used by countries when dealing with pandemics.” What changed? Feckless, politically-motivated leadership, who naively believe the Chinese government was transparent and had the solution.

Please take the time to educate yourselves. Read the Great Barrington Declaration and listen to the 50,000 doctors and scientists who oppose lockdowns as a strategy to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Watch Ivor Cummins’ YouTube videos from Jan. 6, 2021, and Feb. 13, 2021. He objectively demonstrates that the data/science does not support lockdowns. Watch Dr. Pierre Kory from Wisconsin, who testified in a U.S. Senate hearing on Dec. 8, 2020. He attested to several recent scientific medical studies that the anti-parasite medication, ivermectin, has been shown to prevent people from contracting COVID. Both ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are cheap and should be available to the public during this pandemic to help prevent contraction or serious complications. Dr. Kory said, “If you take ivermectin, you will not get sick.” Big Pharma, Big Tech, the media, Dr. Fauci and Governor Inslee all mysteriously do not want this information made available to the public.

The science tells us that lockdowns have caused a serious mental health crisis in our country. They have also contributed to America’s increased obesity rate. As proven, obesity is considered an underlying condition when paired with COVID-19. Read the article written by The Epoch Times journalist Joseph Mercola for the Feb. 24-March 2, 2021 issue titled, “60 percent of Americans will be obese by 2030.” Mercola wrote: “In the United States, 42.5 percent of adults 20 and over are obese, while another 31.1 percent are overweight.” His article goes on to talk about the effects of obesity and COVID-19: “In fact, COVID-19 patients with mild obesity had a 2.5 times greater risk of respiratory failure and a five times greater risk of being admitted to an ICU compared to non-obese patients, according to researchers from the Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, in Italy. As such, calls have been made to tackle the pandemic by targeting junk food.” Even with the added evidence of how bad lockdowns are for the community and the people living in our state, the governor remains silent or doesn’t address this problem.

I was talking with some friends recently. The discussion turned to a hypothetical. If former President Trump was the governor of Washington, rather than Jay lnslee, and had issued the same lockdown orders, can you imagine the outcry and outrage by the Seattle Times and the rest of our state/national media? Trump would have been excoriated and vilified every day as a misogynistic, racist, xenophobic dictator – not fit for office. At least Trump declined and never took a paycheck. The governor and all our elected officials continue to take theirs.

By the way, I trust Dr. Seuss more than Dr. Fauci. Just sayin’.