Townhall Review | Commentaries

One lesson from the coronavirus crisis is that American rugged individualism is still alive.  While many wait for government to solve the problem, countless Americans are at work on it.

Perfume companies and distilleries retooled to make sanitizer, automakers manufacture ventilators, architects make face masks. Everything from education to funerals has reinvented.

Rugged individualism was prized on the Western frontier but is now attacked as selfish and out of date.  But when a crisis comes, we’re glad it’s there.

One misunderstanding about rugged individualism is that it stands against community, but just as pioneers traveled in wagon trains and built houses together, Americans today help one another with meals, hotel rooms, and groceries. Generosity abounds.

When the story of the Covid-19 crisis is written, rugged individualism should be a hero.

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This is David Davenport of the Hoover Institution for Townhall.com.

Some say authoritarian governments are better able to manage a crisis like coronavirus than a democracy.  But I say, not so fast.  

The Founders wisely provided for emergency powers when needed, and both the president and governors have used these.  We have institutions such as the Federal Reserve able to take quick action when needed.

But beyond that, our democracy depends on the virtue of the people.  Benjamin Franklin stated what the founders understood when he said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.”  

The jury is still out on whether people get this.  We still have far too many people, especially young people, out and about, ignoring social distancing.  People are still hoarding sanitizer, masks, and toilet paper.  

Yes, we need everything medical science can bring to the table but, more than that, we need the American people to step up their sense of civic virtue.  

I’m David Davenport.

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At festive Passover celebrations, Jewish people traditionally ask: “Why is this night different from all other nights.” Well, this year, we’ll ask: “Why is this Passover different from all other Passovers?”

In place of Seder tables packed with family and friends, most of us will dine alone—sitting down only with those who share the same domicile. But Passover in a pandemic does call to mind an often-ignored aspect of the original Exodus story.

The Jewish people didn’t go from slavery to liberation the moment we left Egypt—first we trekked 50 days to Sinai to receive The Law, with 40 more wilderness years after that before entering the promised land.

Today’s Americans face weeks, even months, of continued disruption before resuming normal life. Celebrating Passover alone, my wife and I will recall that true liberation is never instantaneous, but part of a rough, tough, ennobling process.

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79 years ago, a man said this amidst global crisis:

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never...”

Winston Churchill’s wise words capture the Western spirit. This is called “intransigence”—unyielding toughness.

But what about when our trials threaten to overwhelm us? When a pandemic attacks the globe, and panic seizes many?

Here we see that we see that we need more than toughness: we need hope. Combining the two, we need tough-minded hope.

But where is hope? When the headlines constantly shift and the nations rage, we feel tremendous instability. We need hope in something beyond us. We are not sufficient for these things.

This is Easter season. Here is where we find tremendous, surging hope: a man felled by death to atone for our sins was resurrected to life.

Death seems triumphant today. But death doesn’t have the last word.

Tough-minded hope—Easter hope, resurrection hope—does have the final word.

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36 states have COVID-19 death rates of 1 or less than 1 per 100,000.

According to the CDC, the overall death rate in America in 2018 was 724 per 100,000.

For influenza and pneumonia it was 15 per 100,000. Projecting COVID-19’s lethality rate is tricky because of the lack of a denominator on the infected. However, CDC guesstimates 25 to 50 percent of infected are asymptomatic. There’s a good chance lethality rates could be much lower than current reporting indicates.

Bristol University risk management professor Philip Thomas projects once mitigation efforts result in a GDP contraction of more than 6.84%-- more lives will be lost than saved. Studies of previous recessions suggest that for every 1 percent point increase in unemployment, the suicide rate increases by 1 per 100,000.

Given what we know about COVID-19 and about the lives economic ruin takes, is a prolonged shutdown the right call?

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A debate is raging among conservatives over our response to the coronavirus. On one hand you hear the point that the cure is going to be worse than the disease. On the other, we hear no price is too high to protect life.

One side is talking about thriving; the other, about surviving.

Of course, the sanctity of life is first, but this is a false choice. We can protect life without shutting down our entire economy.

How?

By making some commonsense distinctions based on risk and reward.

Think of a mosh pit at a night club … high risk, low reward. Our GDP gain almost nothing from it, but the virus gains a lot.

On the other hand, think about road or bridge construction. Lots of economic punch, low contagion risk.

President Trump should look in this direction. He should extend the principle of high and low risk reward zones to the broader economy as well.  

I’m Jerry Bowyer.

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has emerged as the keystone of our nation’s capitol.

Amid a pandemic threat that has caused the nation’s worst crisis since 9/11 coupled with fiscal/economic challenges that are already the equal of the Great Recession, McConnell has been nothing short of “magnificent.”

That description came from former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who went on in his interview with me last week to call McConnell, “one of the most important Senate leaders in American history.”

Gingrich is right.

The complexity of our time, the depth of partisan rancor and the intensity of media glare will help secure McConnell’s legacy as among the most talented legislators in our nation’s history.

They called LBJ the “Master of the Senate.” In times of crisis. it’s comforting to have a leader every bit LBJ’s equal at work for the country, the Constitution and the Republican Party.

We are witnessing Leader McConnell at his finest hour.

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The coronavirus forced a resolution of Israel’s polarizing, paralyzing political stalemate. Benny Gantz, the former army chief-of-staff who fought Prime Minister Netanyahu to a virtual tie in three national elections in the course of a year, finally accepted his rival’s invitation to join “an emergency national unity government” to fight the pandemic.

To do so, Gantz had to split with the left-leaning elements of his Blue-and-White Party. Now this isn’t a betrayal—it’s a demonstration of putting patriotism above party. Netanyahu also agreed to concessions—after 18 more months in the top job, Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister will also step down and enable his new partner to become Prime Minister for the next eighteen months. The clearest winner in all this is the nation of Israel, which sends a message to her American friends about the importance of coalition and compromise, especially in times of peril.

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The coronavirus crisis has already exacted a significant toll on our country, with lost lives and lost livelihoods. Our economy is basically shut down, with millions joining the ranks of the unemployed each week.

I know that all Americans, like me, are eager to get back to life as usual. But this coronavirus crisis is one that will not end on our own timing. And we will need both grace and patience to carry us through.

We will not be able to restart our economy until the worst of the public health crisis has passed. It will be hard to convince people to eat out, shop at the mall, attend a sporting event or take that trip to Europe until they believe it is safe to do so.

So that means—as hard as it is—we wait at home for this crisis to end. With the confidence that this, too, shall pass.

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This is Owen Strachan for Townhall.com.
 
Chances are good right now that you feel like you’re drowning in bad news.
 
Here’s some seeming good news: in the midst of Coronavirus spread, it appears that some doctors are seeing a positive response to a new drug combination called, in abbreviated form, the “Hydroxy cocktail.” 

In New York, one doctor has apparently treated almost 700 patients with good success. In response to this, the FDA per the encouragement of President Trump has given a green light for testing. 
 
At Townhall.com, Kevin McCullough commented on these developments: “Use of the [cocktail] in the USA is already demonstrating life-saving results…due to the generosity (not greed) of “big pharma.””
 
We await fuller results from the “Hydroxy cocktail” effort. Here is something we know for sure: irrespective of partisan politics, we need good news.
 
Let’s not fall prey to mud throwing and cheering against our public officials.
 
If these reports are verified, let’s celebrate a win.
 
I’m Owen Strachan.

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