Truth on the Scaffold

                                Truth on the Scaffold

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal.4/5/20

            With the country virtually shut down, the question is no longer “Who you gonna call?” but “Who you gonna believe?”

             Is parking the economy wise or wrongheaded? Are small business owners staring into an abyss, or not?

            When questions like these pile high, it’s time to talk, pray, and get philosophical. Philosophical isn’t a highfalutin word. So dedicated are we to science, technology, engineering, and math that we have almost let philosophical questions drop. Here we are in a moment that appears to be turning into months. That moment begs for knowledge of practical economics as well as for attention to the philosophical. Literally philosophy means love of wisdom.

Two down-to-earth definitions mixed and scraped from this writer’s verbal blender might help us. The adjective philosophical means devoted to the study of reality. (Students and the man on the street don’t need that?) But there’s a better definition. Philosophical also means showing a calm and unflinching attitude toward disappointments or difficulties. Example: “Ben was philosophical about losing his small business to the coronavirus.”

This doesn’t mean Ben was in denial or dismissive of a reality. It means he acknowledged it and was stable – calm and unflinching – as he pondered his difficult situation.

There are many Ben’s in the nation today. Brenda’s too. Besides their economic loss, there’s another unknown truth issue. Do they have the virus symptoms or not? Is either of them sick without knowing it? If Ben is philosophical, let’s pray that Brenda is as well and that they’re both tenacious and strong if they have to go back to nothing.

Ben and Brenda also face our question, “Who you gonna believe?” They have to ask if the truth about their health prospects and livelihood is being told, if the truth is being stretched, or if it’s even known.

Here are some considerations they face. According to Dr. Deborah Birx this past week, there could be 100,000 to 240,000 deaths. To this model the Wall Street Journal responded, “April is going to be a brutal month for America … But as the bad news arrives, it’s important to understand that the worst-case scenarios that many in the media trumpet are far from a certain fate.”

Birx and the WSJ were speaking of the potential death toll, not the economic toll. The media is ignoring the economic toll, creating a lives-versus-the-economy argument. Not spoken of too much in national news is the virus’s effect on rural and small town America. Small banks across the country are woven into the local economy fabric, getting little attention. They must balance the help they give to local businesses with their own bottom line. If Ben and Brenda are rural or small town dwellers, their lives are probably less at stake, but their pantries and mortgages more at stake than those in metro areas.

 Speaker Nancy Pelosi will soon propose another stimulus bill. Columnist Cal Thomas, pleading fiscal sanity, fears Pelosi’s proposal will simply increase our “dark hole of debt,” and adds that Republicans and Democrats “are now joined at the pocketbook.”

So the truth and the best policy lie where? One truth is that America’s federal system doesn’t allow the president to dictate to state governments. President Trump is right to defer to governors. He should counsel them, however, to ease in the reopening of nonessential businesses and at least allow non-seniors to return to work. Addressing economic despair doesn’t diminish our concern for lives. Our frontier and wagon train forebears understood the balance and the risks.

Another truth is that people in charge of the government tend to think they have the answers simply because they have the power. Recently California Gov. Gavin Newsome, one of the many who believe abortion is an “essential service,” declared, “We have an opportunity for re-imagining a more progressive era.” Columnist George Will calls this “virus opportunism.” We had better watch what we are allowing government to do, including governors and mayors. Progressives love enlarged government. Freedom still matters and its future is absolutely in the mix.

We need more advice than just the medical experts or economic theorists. We need to hear from small business owners. How long can we continue with a shutdown economy? Caged people can get ugly.

Poet James Russell Lowell wrote, “Once to every man and nation / Comes the moment to decide / In the strife of truth and falsehood / For the good or evil side.” Truth, Lowell argued, is forever on the scaffold.

 Comebacks are America’s specialty, but to come back from a killer virus, applying a little oil to our economic engine is just as important as washing our hands. Sick is bad. Broke is too.

Roger Hines

4/1/20