I recently saw that a company is selling T-shirts with the logo, “Make Orwell Fiction Again.”  The shirts feature Big Brother’s eyes watching you.  That might sound funny, but it’s not a joke, it’s a warning.  We’re living George Orwell’s dystopian nightmares.  Our response to the Wuhan virus put me in mind of another Orwell work, Animal Farm.  And it’s with no enthusiasm that I must tell you, we’ve met the animals, and we’re the sheep.  The sheep in Animal Farm have no names and no individuality.  The pigs (think establishment) run the farm.  Squealer (think the media) teaches the sheep to simply bleat in unison, “Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad.” Which is not much different than today’s Squealers intoning, “Biden good, Orange Man bad.”  How did Americans become the sheep?   When French historian Alexis de Tocqueville toured America in 1831, he concluded that American freedoms were protected, not only by our Constitution, but by our individualism.  America was built by rugged individuals and innovators, who tamed its frontier, built its industries, and created new technologies.  These individuals built the nation that defeated fascism, fed the world, and went to the Moon.  But that was then.  Now, we’ve turned into a nation of cowards, hiding under our beds from a disease.  Driving alone in our cars, with masks on, in case the Wuhan virus is hiding in the vents.  Afraid to see our neighbors, or touch our loved ones.  Why?  Because Orwell’s latter day pigs, who are controlling the message, tell us so.  “Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad” has been replaced by “Stay at Home, Wear a Mask.”  No, I’m not a virus denier, whatever that is.  The Wuhan virus is a serious problem, but it’s no more than the latest of a multitude of diseases that have afflicted mankind.  To be blunt, shit happens, witness the 200 million deaths from the bubonic plague, 56 million from smallpox, 50 million from the 1918 Spanish Flu, and more recently, 1.1 million from the 1957 Asian Flu, and 1 million from the 1970 Hong Kong Flu.  I forgot one.  200 thousand deaths from the 2009-2010 Swine Flu, the one Joe Biden claims he took such good care of.  So, when President Trump said, “It is what it is,” he wasn’t being cold-hearted, he was simply recognizing the reality that diseases exist which are beyond the ability of man to completely control.  Simply put, we did everything possible to lessen the impact of the virus, and no one, least of all Joe Biden, could have done better.  However, the message is, “lock down, stay home, don’t teach, don’t travel, don’t do business, and live in fear.”  And it’s a big mistake.  Dr. Scott Atlas, former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center, recently joined the Coronavirus Task Force.  Dr. Atlas argues for a different approach, protecting the higher-risk populations and allowing the virus to burn through people to whom it poses less of a risk.  The risk of death to children from this disease is nearly zero, and children rarely transmit the virus to adults.  Atlas says we are ignoring five key facts.  1) The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19.  Even in New York City, the epicenter of the pandemic, with more than one-third of all U.S. deaths, the death rate for people 18 to 45 years old is 0.01%.  2) Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding.  The stories of mounting new cases ignore a pertinent fact.  Testing 72 million people has found more positive cases, but the rate of serious illness is going down, steadily.  In April, more than 1% of those testing positive were hospitalized in serious or critical condition.  Remember the daily ventilator tallies?  Despite more new cases, fewer people are in serious condition.  In June, 0.9% of positive cases were serious or critical.  In July, 0.8%.  As of 8/19, that number went down to 0.68%.  In other words, it’s getting better, not worse.  3) Vital population immunity (herd immunity) is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem.  We’ve replaced herd immunity with a herd mentality.  4) People are dying because other medical care isn’t getting done.  For every 2 Wuhan deaths, there’s 1 death that could have been prevented without the lockdowns.  5) We have a clearly defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted measures.  Atlas says opening schools is a national priority, and there is no need to cancel sports, as young healthy athletes are at little risk.  Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist, Michael Levitt, calls our response to the virus “suicidal.”  Emergency room physician, Dr. Dan Erickson, accuses Dr. Fauci of fearmongering, as his lethal regimen is totally divorced from the actual data.  In short, we haven’t “followed the science.”  Dr. Erickson also points out that “social distancing” should really be described as “quarantining the healthy,” which contradicts the basic tenets of both microbiology and immunology.  “When someone has measles you quarantine them.  We’ve never taken those without disease and without symptoms and locked them in their homes.” The lockdown has produced these results – Anxiety hotline calls up 1000%; incidence of child abuse up; financial, emotional distress and suicide up; alcohol abuse up; and 150,000 Americans a month not receiving cancer screening.  And all because we’re playing Fauci Says.  We’ve turned Americans into sheep because this is a political disease, an offshoot from the underlying disease in our body politic.  We have hysteria for two reasons.  The president is a Republican named Trump, and there’s an election November 3.  If Obama was still president, there would be no pandemic, or at least no pandemic stories in the media.  If this was not an election year, there would be no crisis.  We know it’s a political disease because even medicine is politicized.  And not by Trump.  Once he said was hydroxychloraquine might be helpful it had to be demonized as dangerous.  These are lies.  In most of the world it’s not a prescription drug.  Used for more than 60 years, it’s safer than Tylenol.  And it works. It can cut deaths in half.  Democrats  are against it either because they’re blinded by their delusions of rectitude, or are so intent on removing the President that they would rather see people needlessly die than chance Trump being reelected.  Talk about a sickness?  That’s a pandemic of insanity.  It’s high time We the Sheeple sent the pigs packing and regained control of our lives.  Repeat after me, “Freedom Good, Tyranny Bad.”