Listeners:
Top listeners:
Revolution Radio Your home for the best variety of Christian music
Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network
Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network (Abovecast Backup) Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network
Home For The Holidays Radio
Akil Watts scores first MLS goal as CITY SC falls to Portland Heartland Newsfeed
Daily deadlines
News and sports submissions: 11 p.m. Central
Advertising, legals, obituaries: 5 p.m. Central
Monday-Friday deadlines
Other business inquiries: 5 p.m. Central
Publication times
Late breaking news as it happens
Normal publication: 11 p.m. Central daily
Other news: Published as it’s made available
Some rights reserved 2017-2025 by Heartland Newsfeed, a Heartland Media Group of Central Illinois and Eastern Missouri media property. Content published by Heartland Newsfeed staff is covered by the BipCot NoGov license. This allows use and re-use by anyone except governments and government agents. License on record. Pro Radio theme designed and developed by Qantum Themes S.L.U.
Commentary
KNAPP: No, the politicians didn’t save us from COVID-19
todayMay 5, 2020 33
Writing at Reason Magazine, Eric Boehm notes two trends revealed in data released by Apple and Foursquare.
Trend One:
Americans began reducing their outings and social interactions before, not because of, “shelter in place” orders issued by grandstanding, opportunistic politicians.
Trend Two:
Americans started coming back out and resuming something like normal life before, not because, those politicians started lifting those orders.
In other words, with COVID-19 as with everything else, government policy is a trailing, rather than leading, indicator.
Politicians don’t start parades
Politicians don’t start parades. They notice parades that we regular people have spontaneously organized, then run as fast as they can to the front of those parades, hoping to be seen “taking charge.”
And yet, for some reason, large numbers of Americans remain devout congregants of what Libertarians call the Cult of the Omnipotent State.
At the beginning of every perceived crisis or emergency, the priests and parishioners of the Cult of the Omnipotent State assert that the only way society will survive is if we all act in lockstep obedience to the commands of the politicians.
And after every perceived crisis or emergency, those same priests and parishioners assert that the only reason society survived is that we all DID act in lockstep obedience to the commands of the politicians.
They are always wrong
They’re always wrong, of course. In fact, it invariably turns out that the politicians and their strutting authoritarian commands made the crisis or emergency worse rather than better — sometimes in a big way, sometimes just at the margins, but at least a little, always and every time.
For some reason, though, we always let the Cultists of the Omnipotent State re-write history with the politicians as the heroes. That’s a mistake that costs lives.
As America “re-opens,” we should put our minds to avoiding that mistake in the future.
This article was previously published on the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism website.
Thomas Knapp
Thomas L. Knapp is the director and senior news analyst for the Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism. Knapp is a journalism veteran of over 35 years and a full-time libertarian writer, editor and publisher since 2000.
Knapp has been the publisher of Rational Review News Digest since 2003 and a former columnist for Antiwar.com.
Written by: Thomas Knapp
Similar posts
Editorial
EDITORIAL: Journalism has no home for gatekeeping in 2025
todayJune 22, 2025 42
Letters To The Editor
LETTERS: March 31, 2025
todayMarch 30, 2025 73
Post comments (0)
Sports Talk
Sports Byline USA
9:00 pm - 12:00 am
Christian Hit Remixes
(Re)Mix It Up
9:00 pm - 12:00 am