Dr. Bruce Porter
The Swine Flu Pandemic: An Obamatunity?
May 8, 2009

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. Things that we had postponed for too long, that were long-term, are now immediate and must be dealt with. This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before.” – Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff to Pres. Barack Hussein Obama to a Wall Street Journal conference of top corporate chief executives

Okay, I’m bracing for some inevitable blowback. There are still some people out there who blindly put their trust and confidence in government almost as an article of faith. Liberals are famous for this, provided of course, other liberals are in charge of government.

I’m going to wade into something here that will potentially alarm and provoke people. At least, I hope so. It may even get my name on a list somewhere in the bowels of Homeland Security. Thanks to the “watch-out-for-these-guys” paranoia memos Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano released recently from Home-Sec, I shouldn’t be at all surprised.

Since last November’s elections, I feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. The landscape is changing, and we’re definitely not in Kansas anymore Toto. In spite of this, I’m one of those guys who dares to pull back the curtain and expose the little man pulling levers, pushing buttons, and shouting into a microphone; “I am the Great and all-powerful Oz! Pay no attention to that little man behind the curtain!” It is becoming clear to me that our government is increasingly playing the role of the “little man behind the curtain” and seeking to intimidate people into subservience through fear-mongering and false displays of menacing power.

I’ve become highly suspicious of the Obama administration’s agenda on a number of levels, and especially related to the recent flu outbreak. It’s enough already that we are living in an era of complete reversal of the Reagan doctrine:

“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem.”

By contrast, the essence of the Obama doctrine is:

“In this present crisis, LACK of government is the problem, and I am the answer.”

Now we seem to be moving toward draconian mandatory “answers” on the heels of this crisis and any others that pop up that will not only threaten our liberty, but possibly our very lives. Scary stuff this.

I’m basically suspicious of government generally, especially in the political climate we find ourselves in presently. The element “Governmentium,” (to coin a phrase) is a highly-toxic, radioactive, and unstable element that must be feared and handled with extreme care. George Washington once gave a grave warning:

“Government is not persuasion. Government is force. Like fire, it is a powerful servant,

and a fearful master.”

You won’t find “Governmentium” on a Periodic Table of Elements in a physics class, but you can be sure that down through history, more people have died from the effects of “Governmentium” than any other factor. I recently read an historical statistic that people are twelve times more likely to perish at the hands of their own government than in all the wars and plagues of history.

I’m in good company with my skepticism. Thomas Jefferson (another right-wing extremist according to the recent definition touted by our employees over at Home-Sec), often expressed his qualms about the dangers of out-of-control government.

“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”

Historically, all governments have enhanced their political capital on the back of natural disasters or upheavals to one degree or another. Politicians have job security when their constituents see them as the answer to all their problems. Their image as public heroes who zoom out of their bat-caves to rescue the helpless sheeple whenever the bat-signal flashes over metropolis is priceless. Sadly, such conditioned dependency upon government inevitably results in loss of personal freedoms and liberty.

There is something about this particular swine influenza “crisis” that causes my “spider-sense” to tingle. I can’t seem to shake the idea that a larger game is afoot, and we are witnessing something sinister unfolding.

Please don’t misunderstand me. Influenza is a very nasty disease, and it kills an average of 30,000 to 60,000 people each year in the United States. The wide range of estimated deaths is due to the fact that while influenza was a factor in all of these deaths, there are often other medical conditions in play that may have caused morbidity in any case. (e.g., a cancer, cardiac, trauma, or diabetic patient at death’s door when they contracted the flu, in which case influenza was a complicating factor.)

When the news media starts freaking out about a “crisis” I take a deep breath, do a firefighter size-up, (“Look up, look down, look all around”) and activate my analysis brain-circuitry. I also consult multiple sources of information, and ask lots of questions. It’s also useful to remember that news media organizations are for-profit enterprises, and they live and die on alarming “breaking news.” If it “bleeds, it leads” is the guiding maxim.

Advertising revenue is their bread and butter and is determined by market-share. Market share is directly proportional to the number of people who are watching (or reading) at any given time. Truth is most of people are fascinated by tragedies and bad news. This is the main reason why most traffic jams occur after an accident. It’s not always because of blocked lanes. Trust me, I know, having been a volunteer firefighter for several years. People often slow down and “rubberneck” the scene for signs of blood and gore.

If this present flu outbreak ever becomes anything more than a few thousand cases, I am deeply concerned that the Obama administration, with their leftist media cheerleaders, fellow-travelers, and “useful idiots” will raise a hue and cry for mandatory vaccinations and nationalized health care. (Read: Socialized, sub-standard, inefficient, outrageously expensive, medically hazardous, bureaucratically-miss-managed, and maddingly difficult to access… “Healthcare”)

In a worse-case scenario, if the media succeeds in fomenting a full-blown panic, it might provide the perfect excuse for President Obama to invoke martial law and suspend the constitution in order to “protect the American people.” He has that power through presidential directives. According to Wikepedia, “Presidential directives are a form of executive order issued by the President of the United States with the advice and consent of the National Security Council. A presidential directive has the “full force and effect of law.””

Again, we all hope this strain of influenza will be just one more nasty bug we will have to suffer through and develop natural immunity for. But one of the virtually forgotten tragedies (which I remember well) was the government’s outrageous over-response to the last swine flu scare of 1976. Untold thousands of people were given a hastily developed and unproven vaccine that killed 25 and paralyzed over 500 people! The lawsuits resulting from that fiasco came to over $1.3 billion in 1976 dollars.

Who stands to gain from a “pandemic?” Follow the money! The pharmaceutical companies will rake in billions, and the socialists in our government will play the panic for all it’s worth. Such a contrived panic always results in greater government intrusion into our private lives, and the main influenza casualty could end up being “Lady Liberty.”

Perhaps you’re aware that over 3,000 people die of malaria every day in undeveloped nations according to the WHO. No? Gee wiz, I wonder why? Our health officials call this a “health problem.” Really? I suspect that if these malarial deaths were occurring in a westernized society where pharmaceutical companies could make billions from lawyer-intimidated insurance companies, this “health problem” would have been solved long ago! A crisis-driven leftist media machine would “call on” government officials to demand that they “do something.” The government bat-mobiles would roar out of their bat-caves, and we’d all lose more money and freedom.

Personally, I’m taking normal precautions. I use a paper towel to open bathroom doors, don’t shake hands with people that are sneezing or have a runny nose, and try not to eat out in restaurants where the kitchen staff can’t speak the King’s English. (And please spare me the ‘racist’ blather. I have a mixed-race family).

This recent flu outbreak came out of Mexico, so isn’t it logical that we call it the “Mexican flu?” After all, it’s perfectly acceptable to call other influenzas names like the “Asian” flu or the “Hong Kong” flu or the “Spanish” flu. The fact that our government steadfastly refuses to enforce our borders and immigration laws along our southern border is inexcusable and criminally negligent, especially since this is where “patient zero” was discovered.

Please understand I have no animosity toward the Mexican people. They have my sympathy in that they live under an oppressive, corrupt government, and desire a better life. Our forefathers in the U.S. paid a heavy price in blood and treasure back in the late 1700s to overthrow an oppressive government, and perhaps the Mexican people should consider a similar course of action. However, we cannot remain a nation or protect our people from deadly diseases (such as antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis just to name one) if we do not maintain our borders and enforce our immigration laws. This is a fact.

When our Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, released an alarming memo last month to law enforcement agencies warning that most of us conservatives are “rightwing extremists,” especially if we are military veterans, I thought surely she’d follow the way of another radical leftist, former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, who was forced to resign in 1994 for encouraging young people to masturbate.

Not so. Sec. Napolitano was right back at the national microphones last week reassuring the American people that Mexican passengers flying into U.S. airports were being “passively” screened for flu symptoms! Does she think we are all slobbering idiots? Anyone with more than a room-temperature IQ knows that tens of thousands of “undocumented” persons of interest are flooding over our open southern borders each day! Who is “passively screening” these people?

It’s not really influenza that worries me. If liberalism is a mental disorder, (as I’m becoming convinced it is) then our efforts to find a cure for such insanity should be our highest national priority. The cure is verifiable, well-documented, and tirelessly shared information. The leftist mindset will not simply annoy us with their altered states of reality and political correctness, or just tax us into poverty. It is likely to get a lot of us killed! The damage being done to our national security, our economy, and our culture will prove to be a vexing burden for decades to come. We must not give in to fear. We must confront the “Obama agenda” unfolding in our nation’s capitol by every legal means at our disposal. Our national survival is at stake!