Opinion by Samuel Strait – May 18, 2023 I recently made a visit , as I do occasionally, to the local Walmart where I spent twenty minutes or so wandering the grocery aisles on my weekly food run. A quick trek to pharmacy for some first aid products, then the adventure through the self check kiosk to settle up. It was only then that I think it dawned on me that I hadn't seen a single mask wearing hold out from three years of Covid indoctrination that had held a good portion of the entire population of the world in a kind of irrational thrall, almost frozen for some in the kind of hysterical fear that was completely without merit. With the passing of the mandates, face coverings, social distancing, lock downs, and the coming of the "final solution", mRNA gene therapy, one would think that critical thinking , rational behavior, and reason would return to at least the "adults" in the room. It hasn't. For over three years, thirty six months, during a "Pandemic", our leadership, Academia, Public Health, the Media, and large swaths of the Medical establishment suspended reason and put in its place fear, hysteria, and irrationality of the most unimaginable kind. The travesty that occurred for that period of time did not end and continues to this day. While those of us who are at least paying attention, discovered that a tiny invisible organism was allowed to dictate behavior for an extended period of years to the entire world's population with very little opposition for what was largely a quickly made up response that ignored existing science and actual expertise in favor of practices known not to be effective and an untested gene therapy that was fraught with a decade or more of known problems and issues. What we now know about the previous three years calls into question the very nature of the application of reason to that which is encountered when fear and hysteria take over a population. It disappears from even the tool box of most of what constitutes our "expert" class. Doctors, Academics, Leadership, and the media have failed the population of the world for far too long. Masking even before the recent pandemic was a failed approach, yet after nearly ninety studies confirming that masks do not work against viruses, a few people, remain convinced that they are protected. Social distancing, and lock downs, as well a failure as a preventative. The scientific community can't even, in spite of all the testing, give an accurate number of those that were infected by Covid due to the fact that the PCR test, the gold standard of testing, is now said to be unable to distinguish Covid from a large number of other viruses. Then there is the mRNA "vaccines" of which we were first told would prevent infection, then later would mitigate the symptoms and reduce the possibility of death. Then it was effective for six months, then four months, then four to six weeks, and now it seems that other than some "minor" improvement in outcome from the original version of the virus, long gone, it has no effect what so ever, no matter how many boosters are taken. Then the other shoe has recently dropped where those that were vaccinated are at risk for serious negatives from a "vaccine" that has no discernible benefit. Most of this, for those that cared to emerge from their shells of hysteria, was information available before the pandemic even existed as a threat. More recently, and even in the early stages of the "Pandemic", information was readily available, for the most part shouted down by the virtuous, that would have made much of the past three years unnecessary. The damage done by the simple loss of reason is immeasurable and will affect this Country for decades. Once irrationality takes hold, the break down of society as a whole is quick to follow. This can easily be recognized in many of the societal "wisdom's" that have taken over and not only been pushed but forced themselves on their communities. Social justice, gender dysphoria, homelessness, opioid epidemics, illegal immigration, reparations, racism, and a host of other unsustainable behaviors have emerged to capture the attention of the world. Clearly the focus on what is reasonable has been lost as this Country orgasms over the fantasies of the insane asylum. If anyone, and I mean anyone dares to question even the remotest possibility that pandering to all of societal ills described above is unacceptable, may they have a suitable isolation chamber handy, for the wrath of the loonies will descend upon them. Tradition exists for a reason, and that is to have a functional society without a manifestation of constant hatred and divisiveness. Non traditional activities within reason can be tolerated. Those that are not can quickly be weeded out. We in this Country have a lot of weeding to do.