Perhaps one of the most glaring clues a given society is in trouble, can be summed up in a single word; inhumanity. At some point, you start seeing instances where one or another person is seemingly unable to sympathize or empathize with their fellows. I can’t speak for others, but for me this is a crimson red flag.

As an example of what I’m not saying, I think the concepts of mask wear, social distancing and sheltering in place are flat out dumb. I’ve done my research; I can cite and have citedstatistics, from the some of very entities currently recommending these practices, that pretty conclusively indicate what my position is reasonable.

I’m not saying such measures should not have been employed early in the “pandemic.” At that point, we knew very little about what was occurring. It made some small amount of sense, to take certain precautions, the aforementioned potentially among them.

As time passed though, a couple of things became obvious.

To begin with, based on the numbers and the relatively steady downward slope, COVID-19 just wasn’t all that serious an issue. There were, it became fairly clear, certain populations—the elderly, and those with certain comorbidities—who needed to protect themselves or be protected from the ravages of the disease. Even for many of them, the death rates were and remain, relatively low.

For the vast majority though, this was not the case. Take for example people under the age of fifty-five. For the entire period (now more than six months) in a country with over 328,000,000 (three hundred twenty eight million) lives, less than 13,000 (thirteen thousand) have died of the virus. As a percentage of the whole population of the country, that’s substantially less than 0.01%. In terms of likelihood of death in the nation as a whole, that’s markedlybelow one in ten thousand.

Put simply, the chance that you would know somebody below the age of 55 who’s died of conditions related to COVID-19 is nearly non-existent. That’s putting aside the idea that in most cases, other conditions heavily contributed to their chances of death (serious breathing issues, pulmonary problems of one sort or another, pneumonia etc).

In case those facts don’t put things in perspective for you, consider that the reason for a large number of the deaths in folks over fifty-five, was mismanagement, pure and simple. I could fault Democrats as a whole for this, but there are really just a couple of folks who decided to implement policies that were signs of horrible malfeasance. I’ll leave it to you to discover whether what I say is true or not, and if so, about whom I’m speaking when I say what I do.

See what I just did there? I made assertions, I backed them up with—granted, boiled down—data, and explained why I came to the conclusions I did. The only people I could be said to have “attacked” are those who believe in mask wear, social distancing, and sheltering in place. Other than that, I “attacked” government officials who appear to have made some terribly unfortunate policy decisions.

At no time, did I give you any name. At no point in the process did I do anything more, than pointing to publicly available, commonly accepted information.

Even for those with whom I disagree, I’m not making the statement they’re evil, or even wrong on any other matter—whether they are or not.

And if one of them gets sick from COVID-19, or is ill or dies as a result of really anything (including sheer stupidity), I’m not going to go around yukking it up because that happened. It’s sad. It’s unfortunate. Things like death and illness happen. That doesn’t mean I desire them to be visited on others.

You should know I say that from a position of one who, after more than a half century of life, has never been seriously ill. That means I could make some silly argument like, “You’re just weak, pitiful human beings.” The “problem” with such a statement is, I’ve learned over time that a couple of things are true.

Strength takes many forms, is the first of these. Just because people aren’t physically strong, doesn’t mean they don’t possess power beyond easy comprehension. How people overcome adversity is every bit as important as how many days they live, and how many of those are in fantastic health.

Nobody chooses their genes, that’s the second thing. You get what you get, and you must deal with it. A friend of mine spent the majority of his adult life in a wheelchair, largely unable to move in the ways most enjoy on an ongoing basis. I promise, that wasn’t a matter of choice for him. It was what it was. He dealt with it every day until his recent, untimely passing.

Was that man a saint because of his condition? No. Was he a saint at all? That depends how you define the term; to me, the answer is, “As a Believer, yes.” That by no means implies he never made mistakes or did wrong. On the other hand, my disagreements with him were relatively few, and mostly minor.

The point of what I’m saying though is this. When, for example, you hear of a family, having paid their money, who’re simply trying to get from Point A to Point B, being removed from a flight because their two year old refused to wear a mask, where I can even understand your trying to justify that (though to me, considering the data, it’s not something I’d want to be on the “pro” side of in a debate), saying things like, “Good riddance.” or “Buh-bye.” may just be a sign that you lack the aforementioned sympathy, to say nothing of empathy.

I well remember dealing with two year old children—even though the most recent chance I’ve had to do so with my own, is almost six years back. If you think doing that is a challenge, imagine dealing with an eight year old Moderately Autistic child, who’s been known to melt down over far less than donning a face covering.

Do you disagree with someone or someones? That’s totally fine. Does that make it reasonable to attack their person, to treat them in manners you wouldn’t appreciate, were you in their shoes? I submit that it doesn’t. Kindness is largely without cost. If you’re not working to be kind and nice as a rule, perhaps you should consider it.

Thanks for reading, and may your time be good.