Soap Box

I am going to do my level best to aim this column straight down the middle, glancing neither left nor right, in what the politicians in DC call a bipartisan fashion.

It is an attempt to circumvent personal political preferences, step around the hyperbolic, the rhetorical and the prejudiced vendettas so firmly ingrained into our minds by media on the left and on the right.

I want to ask a question and I am not going to give my opinion, but leave it to everybody who reads this to answer, the only caveat being, that you be honest with yourself, using only your own thoughts, unclouded by the obviously tilted and verbose comments of those with a very dull ax to grind.

The question is this...

If you were President of the United States of America, how would you have handled the coronavirus pandemic?

Let’s set an imaginary scene.

Let’s say, the country is buzzing along economically, with no major military conflicts, no immediate heavy-duty problems looming on the horizon, that international prestige and relationships were in good shape, unemployment was extremely low, domestic industrial startups were proceeding at a pace not seen in decades, the stock market continued to break records and GDP was inching into rarified territory.

And let’s say you had large and acquiescent majorities in both houses of Congress, freeing you to do basically anything you wanted.

And like a bolt from the blue along comes the coronavirus and in a matter of days it becomes obvious that this disease is so contagious and so deadly that experts are saying has the capacity to kill millions of Americans in a matter of months.

It’s never been seen before, very little is known about it, if is passed by person-to-person contact, by lasting for days on surfaces, is it airborne. Is it capable of infecting the food chain or the water supply?

Are there any existing therapeutic medicines to treat the infected?

How fast is it capable of spreading and how many ways can it be passed, what is the incubation period and what is the best way of slowing it down and isolating it?

And now on top of that, the disease starts popping up all over the world, worse in some places than others, totally catastrophic in some, and nobody in the medical or scientific communities has the answers.

Now, remember, you have no barriers to speak of from the legislative branch which leaves you free to do basically whatever you wish.

Now without the benefit of the hindsight we have today, take yourself back to the first days of this developing pandemic and answer honestly.

What would you have done?

Would you close down the incoming flights from the country of origin and curtail the flow of foreigners from nations where the virus was known to be rapidly spreading?

Would you immediately start making arrangements to drastically increase the production of ventilators, personal protective gear, specially equipped hospital beds, even to the point of enacting a war powers act to actually force private industry into manufacturing the needed products if necessary?

Would you commission a group of the best and brightest to research, manage and advise?

Would you basically shut down the economy of the nation, forcing citizens to quarantine themselves for a period of time, allowing only what is deemed as urgent and imperative business and services to operate?

And when and what do you do about kick-starting the economy?

Do you do it in segments?

Do you wait while approximately 330,0000,000 people are tested to make sure the virus has been stamped out?

Awesome job, huh?

What do you think? 

Pray for our troops our police and the peace of Jerusalem. 

God Bless America 

— Charlie Daniels

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Check out "Mexico Again" from Beau Weevils - 'Songs in the Key of E'