Outlasting the Oligarchy.

• Author: Singleton, Marilyn M.

DRIVING ACROSS OUR COUNTRY makes one appreciate this glorious and (dare I say) exceptional nation. The diverse landscapes are a feast for the eyes. Food for the soul is the affirmation that most Americans love their families, treasure the U.S., and enjoy their fellow citizens whether they be white, black, or somewhere in between.

Yet, daily, the media dutifully informs us coastal and urban residents about gender fluidity, diversity training, and decarbonizing energy systems to avert the coming environmental Armageddon. When the media could not flog us with a juicy COVID-19 tragedy, it resurrects a tired but effective angst-inducing headline about the imminent big earthquake.

Why would the media-government complex want to demoralize its citizens and have them live in fear and anxiety even when a "crisis" has resolved?--to make them rely on the government, rather than themselves for their day to day needs; to steer them from respecting the democratic republic formed by our Constitution to accepting government control of their lives. Fear lays the groundwork for unquestioning compliance.

Federal and state governments have used COVID as a justification to cross the line from public safety measures into tyranny. Despite the decreasing number of cases, the national COVID emergency declaration has been extended. This gives the President more than 100 special powers that can bypass legal procedures ranging from banking to public health and anything else the government wants to control.

Despite a long tradition of differing opinions regarding medical disease processes and treatments, the government discouraged such discussions regarding COVID. First, the Surgeon General simply asked us to help stop "misinformation" because it "pollutes our information environment." A few months later, the Feds were demanding that social networks, search engines, crowdsourced and e-commerce platforms, and instant messaging systems send data and analysis on the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on their sites. Translation: divergent opinions will be censored once the government discovers how to do so. What happened to our respect for the marketplace of ideas?

If tracking our computer use does not work, we have the National Patient ID, a single number issued by the Federal government containing all the details of a person's medical records from cradle to grave. The concept has been around for more than 25 years as part of HIPAA. However, Congress banned itself from...