'New normal here to stay'? Not here in America, columnist says

FPI / May 7, 2020

There was a time when freedom did ring in America.

Then came coronavirus, and with it the emergence of authoritarian governors and mayors.

A media fully complicit with those authoritarians blared daily headlines touting the “new normal” of forced face mask wearing, mandated 6-foot social distancing, and chilling speech curtailing.

A Mayo Clinic social media post said: "COVID-19: Will social distancing be the new normal? A Mayo Clinic expert discusses what the future might look like".

The post went on to state, "[N]ew projections suggest social distancing may need to continue through 2022. Researchers predict that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, will return every winter, and that prolonged or intermittent social distancing strategies could limit the strain on health care systems."

"Spit on this 'new normal,' " Washington Times columnist Cheryl K. Chumley wrote on May 6.

"The standard in America is not and will not be this 'new normal.' The standard in America is freedom, erring on the side of individual rights not government dictates," Chumley wrote, — adding, "Fight the 'new normal.' "

She offered the same response to a quote from Gregory Poland, with vaccine research at the Mayo Clinic, in the same Mayo piece: “I think we very well may become a culture, at least in the wintertime when there are so many respiratory viruses circulating, that we’ll be more like Asian cultures, where they more readily wear masks when outdoors.”

Chumley noted that the "new normal" elevates "the likes of Bill Gates, of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, at the head of deciding national policy — not the president, not Congress, not elected officials who are accountable to the people."

From the website of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, comes this headline: "Amid Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, Governor Cuomo Announces Collaboration with Gates Foundation to Develop a Blueprint to Reimagine Education in the New Normal."

Chumley noted that "This is the same Gates who brought America the bureaucratically bloated top-down approach to public education called Common Core. And now he’s working hand-in-hand with New York’s governor to develop a post-COVID-19 education plan for the state’s public school system?"

Among some of the topics of the Gates-Cuomo “reimagine education” campaign: How to better use technology in the school systems — "because the old mode of our education system where everyone sits in a classroom is not going to work in the new normal," Cuomo said.

In other words, Chumley wrote, "Make way for the forced remote learning. Make way for the forced at-home, online classroom instruction. Make way for the forced intrusion of government-developed technology into personal home space, under cloak of the 'new normal' of learning."

"Fight the 'new normal.' "

The nonprofit ThinkGlobalHealth wrote: "A New Normal With COVID-19: The Next Steps We Must Take. With good strategy and strong execution, we will be able to return to a safer, more united world with better health care."

A united world? "But what of the republic? What of the American democratic-republic indeed," Chumley wrote.

The World Economic Forum wrote: "There is no returning to normal after the crisis."

Chumley wrote: "We still have choice and free will ... and thank the wisdom of Founding Fathers, a Second Amendment. But more than that, Americans have moxie. Americans, by and large, are a hard bunch to enslave.

"Americans can choose to fight this 'new normal' — should choose to fight this 'new normal.' Because what this 'new normal' means in America is this: Not America. And a free America is very much worth saving."

Free Press International