The New Abnormal

Like many in our country today, I have grown weary of talking about the impact created by COVID-19, but in the wake of people being assaulted and dragged out of retail stores by angry crowds for refusing to wear a mask, I can no longer remain reticent. This entire orchestrated affair has gone too far, and it is long past due that concerned citizens take a stand for the truth rather than sit idly by in fear while our society deteriorates and the fundamentally Christian principles that once defined us as a nation are brushed aside.

The measures that have been implemented by government leadership and purportedly knowledgeable public health officials are tearing the very fabric of our society asunder. Fear has always been an effective motivator, but it is also a convenient doorway to the Achilles heel of those who have been intentionally misinformed and lack the kind of grounding that only an earnest relationship with God can provide. Consequently, with the help of social media and politically biased news agencies, the so-called pandemic has evolved into a societal crisis unlike anything we have witnessed in history. In terms of exposure to this novel coronavirus, I am personally at extreme risk for any serious respiratory illness primarily because I am immunocompromised. Therefore, one would reasonably expect me to be worried about the ramifications of becoming infected. Yet, while others apprehensively run around in circles like decapitated chickens, I am not the slightest bit concerned about COVID-19 or any other disease for that matter.

It is my unwavering faith in God that provides the balance and calm assurance under these peculiar, unprecedented, and certainly unwelcome circumstances. But therein lies the reason for the chaos that has gripped our nation and others around the world. Most, even in our own church, have apparently abandoned whatever faith they once had and instead seek refuge in corrupt instrumentalities that most assuredly do not have their best interests at heart. They chose to believe those who are not worthy of their trust. They swallowed their false narratives hook, line, and sinker. They drank the Kool Aid.

The truth about the so-called pandemic seems to be quite elusive. Similar to the controversy surrounding Black Lives Matter and the racial justice movement, there seems to be two distinct factions involved in the pandemic conundrum. One faction believes that the virus is extremely deadly and thus religiously follows every mandate issued by authoritative agencies to the letter. The other faction, apparently much smaller, believes that the danger of COVID-19 has been grossly exaggerated and the authoritarian measures implemented to mitigate its impact are incongruent with the actual risk of infection from the virus. Obviously, these two schools of thought are diametrically opposed to one another. But, which one reflects reality? What is the real truth about how the pandemic is being managed? To help put this into perspective, we need to consider the history of education in our country and its impact on impressionable minds.

It is no secret that public education has been used as a tool of indoctrination since its inception. After all, teachers have a captive audience of malleable minds to subtly influence with the narratives of those in government who wish to maintain their power and influence over the populace.

Even a recent New York Times study highlighted how both red and blue states use public education as a means of indoctrinating students into their preferred ideologies. Oftentimes, ideologues provide the methodologies and practices that teachers use in the classroom without analysis or forethought. In other words, Teachers often embrace what they are given to use for instruction, without asking questions. The process eventually becomes almost subliminal. This leaves the door open for systematic programming of students so that they will follow a particular paradigm when reasoning through problems. That is, independent thought is stifled right along with intellectual development. A good example is Common Core – a methodology that has become somewhat infamous in recent days. Many have gradually become aware that this methodology is actually the antithesis of what is optimal to meet the goal we intend to achieve in educating our children. It derails independent thinking by emphasizing skills over content. In math and science, it focuses on process over product. In other words, it becomes more important for students to learn and follow an oftentimes convoluted process to arrive at an answer, rather than to have the right answer.

In short, methods such as Common Core, along with its predecessors, have produced a generation of automatons who lack the ability to reason for themselves. Critical thinking has been replaced by implanted narratives, which is exactly how LGBTQ advocacy and movements such as Black Lives Matter and others have been able to instill radical liberal ideals in the minds of millions. Even worse however, is that these far left socialist behemoths have created a spate of irrational thinking, backward reasoning, and “sound good” or “feel good” narratives that do not even begin to address actual problems or core issues. Rather, they are clever diversions designed to prevent the assimilation of factual data, drowning their unsuspecting victims in a sea of doubt and confusion. And without the critical thinking skills that have been summarily abandoned in our schools, they will not be able to find their way out of the quagmire. Instead they will capitulate and conform – following the crowd and doing whatever they are told to do.

So, how does this relate to what authorities and the media refer to as “the new normal”? One good example involves the arguments surrounding mask-wearing. Many innately suspect that wearing a mask all day long poses a potential health hazard. This is because of the lightheadedness and weakness that often accompany extended periods of wearing a mask, particularly when exerting oneself. In fact, on March 2, 2020, early in the progression of the pandemic, Surgeon General Jerome Adams said that wearing a face mask could actually increase a person’s risk of contracting COVID-19. Although he did not elaborate on the basis for his recommendation at the time, there is an important related point that anti-mask advocates have been touting – and that is carbon dioxide buildup. Those who are familiar with human physiology understand that retention of excess CO2 due to inadequate air exchange can cause respiratory acidosis, effectively lowering the blood’s pH. Peer-reviewed articles in medical journals confirm that such a condition can suppress immune function, essentially causing an individual to become more susceptible to diseases such as COVID-19.

Not to be outdone by sound scientific arguments however, the indoctrinated naysayers are quick to point out that CO2 molecules are many times smaller than the pores in a typical mask or face covering, so they pass right through unimpeded. If the potential consequences of such reasoning were not so dire, this counter to the CO2 buildup argument would be laughable. It is actually ludicrous. The molecular size of CO2 and the permeability of a face mask have little to do with CO2 retention. It is the volume of air exhaled that determines how much CO2 is retained or released. It does not require an extraordinary intelligence to recognize that any object placed over the nose or mouth will impede the amount of air exchanged over a given period of time. This will obviously impact the availability of oxygen as well, which is vital – particularly when exercising. 

Obviously, anything that even partially blocks the airways poses an impediment to the free exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide – a process that God intended as part of the intricate design of our respiratory system. But, thanks to the prestidigitation of liberal extremism and our ‘illustrious’ system of public education, millions will hail the molecular size explanation as a godsend to allay any concerns those nefarious anti- maskers may have placed in their minds about donning a mask. Unfortunately, these indoctrinated individuals will never reason their way out of this pseudo intellectual falsehood. They do not possess the analytical or critical thinking skills to delve any deeper than the narrative that has been placed on the table for them to consume. Some exercise enthusiasts who bought into this fanciful bill of goods and wear their masks even while outside vigorously exercising, may even suffer a heart attack or stroke and die as a result. There are already a number of media reports about such incidents.

Another example of the previously described indoctrination phenomenon is social distancing. This now all-too familiar term is a product of junk science. There are numerous studies that vary considerably in terms of the physical distance necessary for droplet dispersion to be a key vector in disease transmission. The six foot distance established by so-called health authorities is essentially arbitrary. There is no possible way to empirically prove its effectiveness in preventing the spread of disease, particularly in this pandemic. There are no double-blind studies. There is no prior track record. The assertion that implementing such a socially restrictive measure can or has reduced the incidence of COVID-19 transmission is purely speculative. Any reduction in the number of new cases can be attributed to numerous other factors, not the least of which is viral load, the stage of viral infection in the host, or the immune status of exposed individuals. Nonetheless, a significant segment of an uninformed and propagandized public embrace this extreme course of action, despite the enormity of its impact on the psychosocial norms of literally billions worldwide.

There are too many other examples of convoluted reasoning to delve into in this article, but the bottom line is nothing more than a simple answer to an unnecessarily complex equation: have these radical methods actually been effective? The answer is an emphatic NO. COVID-19 is now ubiquitous. This is why there have been substantial resurgences of the virus despite these highly destructive mitigation efforts. Unfortunately, this will continue to be the case until herd immunity is established or the virus has run its course, just as others like SARS, MERS, and swine flu have in the past.

Pandemics have occurred throughout human history. In some cases, many millions died. Consider the bubonic plague of 14th century Europe. Referred to as the Black Death, it is believed to have killed between 30 and 60 percent of Europe’s population – perhaps as many as 200 million people. But, despite this rather gruesome statistic, it was nonetheless a natural event associated with living in this world. While the loss of life from such disease outbreaks has always been extremely unpalatable, it is nonetheless part of the natural order of things. Disease happens. So do earthquakes, tornadoes, and forest fires. But, even if COVID-19 could potentially create the same devastation as the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, as some have insinuated despite documented mortality statistics that do not support such a notion, the question we must ask ourselves is simply this: is it worth turning our society completely upside down for fear of possibly spreading infection? Now, before you consider this to be nothing but insensitive rhetoric, seriously consider the impact the methods of authoritarian control have had on the lives of literally billions. I will get to that shortly.

When I was a child, I recall watching a cartoon that aptly characterizes the most salient point in this pandemic saga. Although my early childhood recollection may not be perfect, I do recall that the cartoon depicted a frazzled man trying to dispose of a bee flying around in his home. Now, we all know that a bee sting can certainly be fatal for certain individuals with allergies. So, it can be argued that the man’s efforts to eliminate the threat are justified, or at least understandable. In the cartoon, he tries every possible method to rid himself of the recalcitrant bee, eventually resorting to the use of a shotgun with buckshot. Naturally, he misses the bee each time – blasting holes in the windows, the walls, and the ceiling. His home is rendered useless with the appearance and integrity of swiss cheese, and the entire home ultimately collapses on him. However, the bee is still alive and thriving – nonchalantly flying around the devastated home as though completely oblivious to the extreme methods of attempted extermination the man employed. I cannot think of a better metaphor than this to describe what is happening with COVID-19.

It is not a stretch to say that the way the pandemic has been handled has brought about the collapse of our society as we know it. It has led to the emergence of the new normal which is nothing more than a cleverly crafted moniker to conceal abnormal or aberrant behavior. Sadly, this is not likely to go away. Those who have been staking their hopes on this authoritarian scourge to end when a vaccine is developed – incidentally another potential coffin nail for the millions who will submit to this poorly tested and very risky solution – are in for a rather rude awakening. The WHO recently announced that even if a vaccine is developed and mandated, the methods that are in place to minimize the spread of disease will remain indefinitely. Dr. Tedros Adhanom, the WHO Director-General, stated quite succinctly that life will never return to the way it was. The new normal will be exactly that – a permanent revision to our way of life worldwide. Many actually view this as a welcome approach to disease management practices. But are people genuinely naïve enough to believe that the impact of this new normal and the restrictions that it levies against every aspect of our daily lives will not have far-reaching and devastating consequences – especially for our children?

Bear in mind that these consequences are permanent and indelible – not transient like a pandemic. While a substantial death toll from any disease is unacceptable, it would behoove the proponents of the new normal to carefully consider the psychosocial damage and death toll from the increased suicides, child abuse, and domestic violence created by lockdowns and other draconian measures that characterize the new normal. The implementation of social distancing and other socially restrictive measures are dehumanizing. People need closeness in order to bond with one another and to otherwise feel connected to the human family. This is especially true for our children. The damage from these authoritarian restrictions is so boundless, that it cannot possibly be quantified. Millions of lives have been disrupted and permanently altered by an excessive and unnecessary incursion into personal daily activities and routines.

While it is true that during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic some efforts were made to limit large public gatherings, the restrictions implemented at that time pale in comparison to those enforced for COVID-19 – a virus whose lethality is nowhere close to that of the H1N1 virus of 1918. Even the worst-case projections for COVID-19 by public health authorities do not represent the smallest fraction of the death toll from the 1918 pandemic. And, as gruesome as the death toll may have been in the 1918 pandemic, people survived without turning their entire society upside down and completely decimating their way of life. Indeed, despite the death toll, life went on. And we are a living testimony to that fact. Can such a death toll happen again with another rogue virus? Perhaps. But, to live in a box or even a gilded cage because of fear — to trade the ability to freely breath the air or to be intimate with those we love, is simply not rational. No society in human history ever engaged in such folly. Even the untoward impact on the God-given process of naturally acquiring immunity is a good reason to shun such perverse methods. Sanitizing our environment, wearing masks, gloves, and goggles, and maintaining an uncomfortable distance from other human beings, derails the immune response required to build natural immunity so that such diseases can be prevented, or at least their severity reduced. This is the purpose for which God designed our immune systems.

As I mentioned in a previous article, it is interesting to note that the R0 value of measles, or the number of people to whom an infected individual may transmit the virus, is many times that of COVID-19. In other words, it is far more contagious. It is also quite virulent, oftentimes producing very high fevers. Yet many of us experienced this childhood disease and survived with a natural immunity. There were measles epidemics back then too, but we never dreamed of ‘closing’ cities, states, or entire countries in an effort to manage the virus. The very idea would have been considered an absolute absurdity in those days. We just rolled with the punches, so to speak. When children were sick, parents kept them home. Sound reasoning prevailed, just as it should today. We should be following the same disease prevention protocols we have always followed until this pandemic — staying home when sick, washing hands frequently, eating right, exercising, and avoiding situations where there is known illness. Those who are at risk for more severe outcomes should avoid public places altogether, whenever possible. But the methods being employed in this pandemic are the product of a corrupt educational system that encourages backward reasoning and magical thinking. It is a nightmare right out of the bastion of the same left-wing liberal extremism that brought us the LGBT movement and Black Lives Matter. It is an aberration.

It is time to wake up. COVID-19 is not Ebola with its 80-90 percent case fatality rate (CFR). Quite the contrary. The CDC recently reported that the CFR for COVID-19 has evidently turned out to be as low as 0.2 percent, only slightly higher than that of the flu. And we have turned our entire world upside down for this? It is sheer madness. Keep in mind also that the statistics for COVID-19 include deaths due to other causes that were reported as COVID-19. It is a known fact that a number of public health agencies issued strict new guidelines for preparing death certificates. That is, doctors were instructed that if the patient died of a heart attack, stroke, or even a snake bite, but tested positive for COVID-19, the death must be recorded as COVID-19. You can draw your own conclusions about this rather telling mandate.

To believe that politics are not involved in the events that have unfolded during this pandemic is not only naïve, but borders on sheer ignorance. Just consider some of the key contradictions. Protests spawned by Black Lives Matter and the racial justice movement involving thousands of people without masks in close proximity to one another were promoted as being safe by individuals in key authoritative roles. Yet, even outdoor church services were denounced as potential high-risk and non- essential activities. A few government leaders and public health authorities even went so far as to say that the BLM protests did not breach the mitigation protocols and would not result in an increased number of new COVID-19 cases. Did we hear that correctly? This absurd contradiction is most likely the primary reason for the success of the lawsuit by John MacArthur, the pastor of the Grace Community megachurch, against the state of California. The suit alleged that Governor Gavin Newsom’s ban on church services is unconstitutional and cited the double standard being applied to Black Lives Matter protesters who were permitted and even encouraged to flood the streets by the thousands, while churches were forced to keep their doors closed. Realistically, how can anyone in their right mind defend such a ridiculous disparity? Indeed, perhaps the virus was taking a knee during the protests.

Despite the facts about COVID-19, there will still be those who have been so terrorized by the media’s melodrama, that they will refuse to believe the truth even if it were to slap them in the face. This is perhaps the greatest tragedy of the pandemic. We have created a society of individuals who are unable to think outside the box – victimized by an educational system deliberately designed to accomplish such a goal. Their inability to see the pandemic for what it is affords the forces that be the opportunity to continue a charade that has already destroyed far more lives than the virus itself. It is no surprise at all when you consider that so many who look to modern medicine for answers have been weaned on television commercials for pharmaceutical drugs that almost subliminally insert a legal disclaimer with a plethora of side effects that are far worse than the condition the drug is designed to treat. This open admission it is not enough to wake them up – it goes right over their heads. They have been indoctrinated into a worldly mindset that usurps any trust in God they may have had at some point and replaces it with trust in dubious scientific solutions. They simply want an answer to their ills, so they become inextricably determined to embrace any promoted cure, even if it is worse than the disease. Thus, their acceptance of the new normal and ultimately their willingness to partake of an unproven and dangerous vaccine.

Indeed, more may in fact die yet from COVID-19 as well as the flu during the upcoming season, and this is unfortunate. But, it is also part of life on this planet. The real question is whether it is worth employing epidemiologically tenuous ideas and highly destructive methods to control a virus that is now ubiquitous and clearly not the threat it has been billed to be by the media, while placing our very way of life on the chopping block.

There is nothing more revealing in this fraudulent depiction of a public health crisis than to watch our young children struggling with their masks and complaining about not being able to breathe. The closure of schools where they would at least have the opportunity to interact with other children and adults, under normal circumstances, has been promoted as a measure to protect them – even though they are ironically the least likely segment of the population to be affected by COVID-19. I cannot state it more strongly – our children are the unwitting victims of our government’s unrelenting efforts to intrude on personal freedoms. Left in the hands of authoritarians, we would eventually lose everything that is dear to us in our lives. Our children are crying out for their friends, who they must now avoid due to social distancing requirements. We are systematically robbing them of the socialization so vitally necessary for their proper development. But it certainly does not stop with our children. We have destroyed economies, shuttered millions of businesses, and dashed to pieces the hopes and dreams of those who worked hard to strive for a better life. Indeed, we have destroyed perhaps millions of lives and changed the very nature of human interaction forever. While we can move on from crises like the 1918 pandemic, there is no recovery from the outrageous intrusions into personal freedoms that COVID- 19 has wrought. If this continues as it is, our children will have little chance to develop into normal, healthy adults.

I may indeed die tomorrow from COVID-19 or some other disease, perhaps even the flu, because of my immune system deficits. But while I am alive, I am going to live my life to the fullest – the way God intended – without fear of dying from a virus or any other natural disaster for that matter. I am quite frankly tired of playing chicken with rules and regulations that cannot legitimately be proven to constitute the mitigation of a public health emergency. I do not want to run back to my car every time I forget a mask, just to be allowed to patronize a retail establishment. I do not want to be continually looking over my shoulder to see if someone is watching to ensure that I comply with a mandate. I do not want to struggle to conduct routine business by phone instead of in person while waiting on hold for indeterminate amounts of time because organizations were not prepared for the fallout from such unreasonable restrictions or they are merely using them as a convenient excuse for poor customer service. I do not want to forego hugging those I love or shaking hands with those I meet. This is not living. Life was never intended to be this way. It is not the new normal – it is the new abnormal.

While others are compliantly following authoritarian rules in their indoctrinated and mesmerized state, I will not go quietly into the night. When people begin to beat each other up for not wearing masks, it is time to pull the plug on this awful charade. The only way that we will ever be able to reclaim our lives is if people boldly step up to the plate and say, enough is enough. Otherwise, it is only going to get worse as the plans to ramp up measures for controlling the populace continue to evolve toward their final stages. It is time to take back our lives from those who, either out of ignorance or intent, plan to do away with the very attributes that make us the human beings we are – precious children of the Living God. Look deeply into your children’s expectant faces when you ponder this question: Do you really want to live this way for the rest of your life?

About the author: Elder Arnie Suntag is the founder and president of Walk of Faith, an organization that conducts seminars and educational series on health and disease prevention and provides outreach services to the community.

Arnie Suntag
Walk of Faith Media
PO Box 4124
Bisbee, Arizona 85603
(866) 359-2640
arniesuntag@walkoffaithmedia.org