The Cost of Dishonesty

I am not an epidemiologist. I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on television. These non-credentials disqualify me from certain things, but they do not mean I can't have informed opinions. I won't presume to be certain in those opinions, and will adjust them as I learn more, but sometimes I get it right the first time.

I'm by no means unique in this.

So, when experts advise things that overtly run counter to the data that they themselves shared with us, the blind deference that some demand of us prompts a deserved rejection.

I recall the early days of COVID, when mortality data started coming out. I recall noticing that the data skewed very heavily to the elderly, and that COVID's threat to young people and minors was very low. Lower than influenza. And by quite a bit. This wasn't some great big secret, or some mystical revelation, or some special knowledge. It was right there, in simple statistics, with experts that weren't beholden to the preferred narrative chiming in with "there aren't hidden elements to this to prompt a different conclusion." And I wasn't by any means alone in seeing this.

Some few politicians got it right. Notably, Ron DeSantis figured out that focusing on the older population was a better idea than the all-in approach, and he was right.

Most, however, decided that nothing mattered but a lockdown on everything, and, later, coercing vaccination of everyone to as great a degree as the government could get away with.

Now, some of the architects of that lockdown are coming around.

Notably, the NY Times.

Genuine shocked face.

In a recent article, Dr. Francis Collins, the retired head of the National Institutes of Health, "acknowledged the larger problem last year when he said that experts erred during the pandemic by taking a"

very narrow view of what the right decision is.

Also quoted is Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health, on the CDC's history regarding COVID and the COVID vaccine.

There is a real cost to our not being honest.

The cost that Galea sees is a distrust of the CDC and its recommendation for COVID vaccines for the young. It's compounded by the lack of such recommendation in 'much of the rest of the world.' And, it's bleeding over into vaccine hesitancy on other, long-in-use vaccines such as for the measles, with some tragic results.

Unfortunately, the Times doesn't quite get all the way to that light it has started to see. No mention of the broader harm of lockdowns, and no mention of side effect concerns from the vaccines. The latter has become overblown in certain segments of the politi-sphere, to the point of conspiracy mongering. This, too, is a cost of not being honest.

When the government lies, or misdirects, or withholds, or pushes a biased narrative, it opens the door for people to ask "what else are they lying to us about?" That question invites speculation, and the competitive nature of Internet attention rewards ever-more-outlandish speculations. Such as the DNA and tracking chip conspiracy theories.

At the root of it all is a contempt for the people. The Best-and-Brightest who have committed to careers in public service forget that they "serve," and instead act as if they "manage." But we are not their children, or their wards, or their flocks.

Nor are we so stupid as to warrant such treatment.

So, now, we have a widespread institutional distrust in America, one that breaks roughly along party lines. That break, in turn, spawns a reflexive blind trust on the other side, and the inevitable and dehumanizing "the other team is full of morons" ping-pong.

And we have no political aspirants who speak of trying to unite the country after this breakdown. Not Biden, not Trump, and not any Congressional leadership. Sadly, this is because too few want unity. The prevailing political message today is "stomp the other team's guts out."

Much of that is due to a growing conflict of visions as to the nature of government and what the country should look like, a conflict amplified by the emergence of social media, but a significant part of it can be traced back to the broken trust, the overt dishonesty from the top down. Even Trump, the champion of the suspicious and skeptical, is a purveyor of dishonesty.

Argentina's new, libertarian President Javier Milei told the voters that his proposals would fix the country's mess of an economy, but they would come at a cost. They elected him anyway. Would Americans elect someone who spoke honestly to them without sugarcoating and without hiding the harder realities? While we may never know, we certainly won't know as long as we keep voting liars into office, even if they are “our liars.”