One Year Later: Whatever The Lock-Downers Do Now, It Will Be Too Late

We have arrived at the one-year anniversary of the day the current Washington governor declared a state of emergency across all of Washington. On February 29^th, 2020 (in what we should probably recognize as the most infamous leap-day in state history) Inslee issued Proclamation 20-05.

Since that day there have been (as of this writing) more than 425 of Inslee’s proclamations posted to the Governor’s web page. For context, the Governor’s web page only lists about 80 total proclamations before Proclamation 20-05—to count up those remaining 80 you have to go all the way back to 2013!

Rather than rule of law, the current governor has averaged more than one proclamation per day these last 365! Free people were never meant to bow under this kind of system for this long.

At first most people were willing to go along with the dog pile of restrictions until we knew what we were up against. Until we knew if hospitals would become overwhelmed. The “two weeks to flatten the curve” lie was originally sold to us as a reasonable attempt to keep the healthcare infrastructure from sinking.

Two weeks has become a year.

Flatten the curve has become a cascade of mandates with very little connection to reality.

“Data and science” as a mantra has been a stick broken off from the tree of knowledge and used as a cudgel to pummel free Americans—with little to no connection to real data or science.

It Is Too Late For Them To Make The Right Decision

It is a given that all of these restrictions would have to come to an end. The question really is when?

There is room there for reasonable people to disagree.

Perhaps it was in April when we saw that our hospitals were largely NOT overwhelmed.

Perhaps it was in July when the summer months (and other freedom-respecting Governors) showed us that even though covid was serious it could be mitigated with appeals to the people rather than mandates.

Perhaps it was in October when significant data from around the world showed that there was zero evidence that schools should remain closed.

Perhaps it was in December when the vaccine rollout was in full swing and any virus spread due to the holidays was already starting a lasting, significant decline.

Compelling arguments might be made and rebutted for any of those scenarios. What is certain, though, is that whichever those past milestones might have been correct, the point at which the right time to stop the mandated restrictions has come and gone.

Many states (highly populated ones at that) have been living their lives in freedom and relative normalcy for many months now. They are doing so safely. The trajectory of the virus’s spread and case/hospitalization curves these 12 months are similar whether a state stayed open, opened back up early, or continues to stay locked down hard. Widespread, prolonged lockdowns were not any more likely to change covid, and they certainly have no place in our country anymore.

So what now? If leaders haven’t let go of their power grab yet, the time for them to do the right thing is behind them now.

No matter when Jay Inslee lifts his oppressive state of emergency it will be too late. It should never have gone this long. He made the wrong choices. He screwed this up.

No matter when your schools finally open up in a way that is meaningful for your kids education, it is too late. They never should have been closed this long. They made the wrong choices. They screwed it up.

While covid is still going to be a thing for a long while to come, it is no longer something that can be used to justify trodding on the liberties of American citizens and making a mockery of every constitution in our union.

If there is someone in authority who is still mandating a closure, a restriction, and face covering, a curfew, a capacity limitation in the name of covid—they have missed their chance to do the right thing.

From here on out no matter when they let up and whatever steps they take to get there we’ll just remember one thing:

They screwed it up.