Category: The More Things Change……

Sometimes reasonable people must do unreasonable things.

The title is a paraphrase of something Marv Heemeyer said. If you’re unfamiliar with that name, it’s the guy who built and used the “Killdozer” to go after people who kept screwing him over in Granby, Colorado. The Lore Lodge on YouTube did a great video on some of what’s been missing from the popular narrative you should check out.

In the heart of things, though, you’ve got a guy who wanted to be part of the community; to contribute and be treated fairly as any person has a right to expect. The problem was, he wasn’t. The “good old boy” system there took issue with him because he bought property that someone else, someone connected, wanted and things went downhill from there until Heemeyer engaged in his rampage.

Which hurt no one, by the way. The only fatality was himself.

But the truth is that you can only push people so far before they start pushing back, and if you push them long enough, their pushback won’t be for just one thing, but a long history of abuses. I’ve touched on how the attacks on Christians could go, but it doesn’t stop there.

See, I came across this bit from Hot Air today, and I found something interesting, but not surprising. See, an auto repair shop called Popular Mechanix has a problem. An arsonist who has been arrested numerous times but keeps coming back to cause problems with the shop. And, frankly, enough is enough.

It’s not that the city is doing nothing. They do arrest and charge Perez Perez every few months, it’s just that the city isn’t stopping him or even discouraging him. He’s committing many more crimes than he’s being punished for and the city can’t deal with it. So dealing with Perez Perez has fallen on shop manager DJ Meisner:

“It feels like the Wild West,” said Meisner about the city. “I try not to give into the doom spiral narrative. But they are doing nothing to dissuade me of that notion.”…

In 2022, Meisner said he was putting out blazes weekly and even installed a ladder he bought from a hunting website to get a better vantage point from the fence line. He placed extinguisher devices on the fence, but they have proven useless and have been swallowed up in the fires.

In October, an early morning fire broke out in Popular Mechanix’s backyard, growing into a large blaze that destroyed two of the shop’s cars and scarred surrounding trees. One of the cars exploded because it was full of gasoline.

In January the police recommended charges against Perez Perez for the November arson (the one caught on video). Supposedly the DA reached out to the company this week, but does anyone think it will matter? Perez Perez might go to prison for another six months. Then he’ll be back on the street and Popular Mechanix will be left to do its best to protect itself from him. And of course, he’s not the only agent of chaos in the city.

The shop’s owner, Andrew Gescheidt, says it feels like he’s being pushed toward becoming a vigilante. “I feel like I don’t want to become a vigilante, but the universe is saying you have to do it yourself,” he said. He vowed he wouldn’t go out and hit Perez Perez with a wrench but added, “Bureaucracy is not helping us.”

Again, the police show up, arrest him, he goes to court, gets a sentence, then comes out and does it all over again. There’s a restraining order against him, but that’s just a piece of paper when all else is considered.

What Gescheidt is articulating here is that he, a reasonable man, is starting to feel like he needs to do unreasonable things.

Let’s understand that you cannot use lethal force in a situation that isn’t reasonably perceived as a life-or-death situation. Bottles of urine and rocks should qualify—both can kill people, after all—but California’s prosecutors would likely disagree. That means Gescheidt attacking Perez Perez in any way, even when you and I might believe there was a threat of grievous bodily harm or even death, he’s likely to be the one to go to prison.

But unless something is done, you’re going to see some kind of vigilantism in San Francisco. Writer John Sexton teases that you have to become Batman to live in San Fran, and he’s not entirely wrong to do so.

The thing is, though, anyone can be pushed far enough. There’s a point where anyone stops being docile and law-abiding. Sure, you can push them pretty far if you’re gentle about it to start with, but even then, sooner or later, you risk crossing the Rubicon and that person unleashing hell.

In a civilized nation, we expect criminals to be punished. We expect at least some response that looks like justice. Since the system is run by people, we can accept that mistakes are made so long as they’re rectified as quickly as possible, but we still expect meaningful action.

Someone revolving through the jails to return and continue to unleash havoc isn’t justice. It’s not remotely like justice, and if it keeps up, someone will decide justice has to come from somewhere else.

Clearly, the police can’t do it.

But it’s not limited here, either.

Right now, the left is, once again, losing their freaking minds. They’re firebombing Tesla dealerships because they don’t like Elon Musk. They’re acting as if they’ve been pushed too far when no one has pushed them anywhere. They’re the ones doing the pushing.

At some point, someone is going to say enough is enough and take action.

Should that happen, it’s entirely possible it will inspire others to act. Reasonable men and women must do unreasonable things, and it’s usually unreasonable men and women who push them to do them.

Stop being unreasonable and things will settle. Fail to do that, and, well…consider yourself warned.

Trump Cabinet Nominees And Administration Appointees Threatened, Swatted Before Thanksgiving.

Former President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees faced a series of threats overnight and on Wednesday morning.

“Several of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees and Administration appointees were targeted in violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt wrote in a press release on Wednesday morning.

The threats, which came the night before Thanksgiving eve, “ranged from bomb threats to “swatting,’” in which a suspect falsely reports an emergency to trigger a police response against his target, according to the release. Police and “other authorities” quickly acted for the “safety of those who were targeted.”

“President Trump and the entire Transition team are grateful for their swift action,” Leavitt wrote. “With President Trump as our example, dangerous acts of intimidation and violence will not deter us.”

Trump has so far faced at least two attempted assassination attempts. In the first, a would-be assassin shot Trump in the head at a Pennsylvania rally, and in the second, a shooter waited in the bushes on a Florida golf course to ambush him, as The Federalist previously reported. Apparently this violence is now being directed toward Trump’s associates.

Leftists have consistently incited violence against Trump by calling him a “Nazi,” peddling the recent Madison Square Garden media hoax and refusing to abandon their incendiary rhetoric in the days after the first assassination attempt.

Devon Eriksen

Cenk has seen the writing on the wall, and knows the dems have no future.

Problem is, the fact that he is able to pivot so smoothly and quickly means that he wasn’t drinking the koolaid.

Which means he knew Trump wasn’t Orange Hitler. That he knew most of the things said about him were lies. Because if half the stuff they said about him was true, no sane person would work with him.

So, if he knew before that it was all a lie, but he’s only pivoting now, that means this is self-interest, not enlightenment.

Which means he is not trustworthy.

This is something to keep in mind as more and more lefties try to pivot to the Trump Coalition, which they will.

Keep an eye on when they turned, and what they said before they turned. Not just about Trump. About covid. About immigration. About white people. About middle America. About heterosexuals. About the working class. About men.

Check the receipts.

Doesn’t necessarily mean we can’t work with them, but it means we must be judicious about how much trust we extend.

Works the other way, too. Ron Paul was laying tracks for the Trump Train before even Trump was on it. Hell, before there was a train. At great personal cost and risk.

The compass needle is swinging away from “experts” with academic credentials from certifying institutions, and towards those with a track record of accomplishment, skin in the game, and, most of all, proven loyalty to the American tribe over the political class.

America is a blood-and-soil nation, like all the others, and, while we have a permissive culture about allowing others to join the club, they must prove their loyalty to be allowed to do so.

Let’s remember to keep that in mind as the rats start to abandon the ship.

Kamala campaign flip-flops on EV mandates.

The former senator cosponsored legislation banning gas-powered cars by 2040

A campaign official for Kamala Harris said Tuesday that it is a “lie” that the vice president Kamala Harris supports implementing an electric vehicle mandate, even though she cosponsored legislation doing exactly that in 2019.

Harris’s director of rapid response, Ammar Moussa, wrote in a campaign email ahead of Trump running mate J.D. Vance’s remarks on the economy in Michigan that the Ohio senator would “undoubtedly lie, gaslight, and try to run away from the truth.” One such lie, he cautioned, is that “Vice President Harris wants to force every American to own an electric vehicle.”

“Vice President Harris does not support an electric vehicle mandate,” Moussa claimed, before citing several news stories that argued the Biden administration only incentivized, rather than mandated, electric vehicle production by car manufacturers. The administration spent billions to build just a handful of electric vehicle chargers and introduced tax credits for electric vehicle purchases. In addition, however, the Biden administration pushed through a new tailpipe emissions rule through the Environmental Protection Agency that would force car manufacturers to significantly scale back production of gas-powered cars. “The regulation would essentially require automakers to sell more electric vehicles and hybrids by gradually tightening limits on tailpipe pollution,” the New York Times reported in March.

Even more damningly, Harris also supported an electric vehicle mandate when she serves as the junior senator from California. In April 2019, months after announcing her bid to become the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, Harris cosponsored the Zero-Emission Vehicles Act of 2019. The bill, which was introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley and Representative Mike Levin, presented “bold plan for transitioning the United States to 100% zero-emission vehicles.”

The original version of the Zero-Emission Vehicles Act of 2019 would require 50 percent of new passenger vehicle sales to be automobiles that use zero emissions — electric or hydrogen-powered cars and trucks. The bill would require all new car sales be zero emission vehicles by 2040, according to text of the bill and a press release from Senator Merkley’s office.

The legislation gave authority to the EPA administrator to issue an “injunction on the manufacture of any passenger vehicles other than zero-emission vehicles by a vehicle manufacturer” by 2040.

Harris supported an even more aggressive version of the legislation that would ban non-zero-emission vehicles by 2035, according to an archived page of her 2020 campaign website obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Harris’s campaign has also claimed that she no longer supports a fracking ban and other key policies of her 2020 Democratic primary campaign. Harris herself has not walked back any of these positions or explained why and how she changed her mind so radically in just one election cycle.

I sometimes wonder what we’re paying them for.

US intel not aware of Hamas’ plan for Oct. 7 attack on Israel, John Kirby says.

The US would do the “same thing’’ Israel did if it suffered an attack like the Oct. 7 assault, a top Biden administration official said Sunday — while admitting US intelligence was unaware of a battle plan from Hamas that Israel obtained over a year before the attack.

“[Israeli officials] have every right and responsibility to go after the terrorist group that perpetrated these attacks and planet and oh, by the way, has made clear they’re going to do it again and do more,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told “Fox News Sunday.”

“We would do the same thing — any nation would,” Kirby said.

Kirby also referred to the recent reported revelation about Israeli security failures in the run-up to the bloody terrorist rampage.

More than a year before the deadly attack, Israeli officials obtained a roughly 40-page blueprint outlining Hamas’ battle plan but dismissed it as unachievable for the terror group, the New York Times reported last week.

Kirby suggested that the US did not learn about the document, dubbed “Jericho Wall,” when its staunch ally Israel did.

“The intelligence community has indicated that that they did not have access to this document,” Kirby told “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

“They have no indications at this time that they had any advance warning of this document or any knowledge of it.”

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This Sneaky Senator’s Insider Trade Isn’t the Most Corrupt Part of This Story.

When a senator who sits on the Health Committee makes a big bet on a small, home-state medical devices company that just happens to get mucho moolah from the federal government, and then that stock goes up more than 40% in the weeks after said senator’s big bet, it’s the opinion of this mostly humble columnist that there’s some real shady stuff going on.

But it gets worse.

Earlier this month — November 8, to be exact — Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) purchased up to $250,000 in shares of Tactile Systems Technology (TCMD). TCMD shares had been on a real losing streak in 2023, down more than 60% from its 52-week high of $26.11. The price was down nearly another third, to $10.27 from $12.61, in the 48 hours before Smith made her big buy.

Buy the dip, of course. What’s remarkable is just how quickly TCMD recovered over the next three weeks — up 43% since the Minnesota senator plunked down her big bucks on a Minnesota company in an industry that Smith’s committee oversees.

That’s just one trade by one senator.

Financial analyst Quiver Quantitative called it “the most suspicious congressional stock trade I’ve seen in months.”

In May of last year, Quiver built “a trading bot that buys stocks that are being bought by politicians.” In a flat market, Quiver’s congressional bot’s fund is up 20% in just 18 months.

The sliminess is bipartisan. Here’s one example of how Quiver’s bot has performed by following the Tesla trades of one Democrat and two Republicans.

How’s your portfolio doing?

“It’s worth noting,” QQ reminds investors, “that despite the outperformance of the Congress Buys Strategy, it may still be held back by weak disclosure regulations.” Congresscritters, under the 2012 STOCK Act signed by President Barack Obama, have 45 days to disclose their stock transactions — but the penalty for late disclosures is all of $200.

So, yes, you could build a portfolio based on what people like Sen. Smith buy and sell, but you still wouldn’t do as well as they do because you’ll be up to 45 days behind their trades. Or longer if they decide to pony up the $200 for late disclosures.

But it still gets worse.

Quiver claims to have traced 7,912 STOCK Act violations, but “only a few have been investigated.” If any of those investigations have actually gone anywhere, it would be news to me. But Congress writes the laws governing Congress, so what would you expect?

That’s why, as far as I’m concerned, the most scandalous part of any of this is the mainstream media’s absolute silence on the matter.

As Bill Whittle put it to Right Angle viewers years ago, the press is supposed to act as a healthy society’s antibodies — gathering in the bloodstream at the site of any corruption to reveal and destroy it. And yet when a sitting member of the Senate Health Committee, whose “husband is an investor with a focus on medical industry stocks,” is making a killing on a volatile health company’s shares, it results in precisely zero stories in the mainstream media.

That’s despite Quiver’s revelations getting more than two million views on Twitter/X — the preferred social media platform of American journalists.

We know what Congress gets out of all this, so what’s the media’s payout?

So, it’s confirmed. He was another nutjob, this time one on a vendetta, that the authorities knew about, but “the system” let slip through the cracks, by incompetence, inability or negligence.

Maine shooter thought local businesses attacked in shooting were spreading ‘pedophile’ rumors about him

Maine law enforcement officers investigating last week’s mass shooting in Lewiston have shared evidence that suggests the U.S. Army reservist Robert Card, who killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar, may have intentionally targeted individuals at those locations.

On Tuesday, Maine State Police and the Maine Department of Public Safety released a trove of documents on Card, including search warrants, affidavits, criminal records and more that shed light on a possible motive after Card, 40, carried out a deadly rampage at the Schemengees Bar and Grille and Just In Time bowling alley that also wounded 13 other victims on Oct. 25.

According to multiple witnesses, including Card’s brother and son, Card knew people at both locations and may have believed they were calling him a “pedophile.” Card experienced a similar incident over the summer when he accused fellow members of his Army Reserves unit of calling him a pedophile. The incident prompted Army officials to have him undergo a mental health evaluation.

One affidavit reveals Card’s brother told police that the eventual mass shooting suspect thought there was a “conspiracy” involving people “accusing him of being a pedophile.”

State police interviewed a witness just hours after the shooting began, who said Card believed local businesses, including Schemengees Bar and Grille and the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley, were “broadcasting online that Robert was a pedophile.” Card, according to his brother, also believed that some businesses were spreading rumors of him being a pedophile online.

Another witness interviewed by police said Card specifically mentioned Joey Walker, the manager of Schemengees Bar and Grille, as one of the people who he thought had disparaged him, according to an affidavit filed in a request to access Card’s cell phone records. Walker was among those killed.

The same witness, whose name was redacted, told police he previously traveled with Card to both the bowling alley and bar, and that Card knew people at both locations.

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“Suddenly”

The World is Freaking Out Because Its Favorite Victims Suddenly Became Human Butchers.

October 7 was so horrific it threatened to ambush the Palestinian cause. So they did what people have done for centuries: They changed the subject and blamed the Jews. That always works.

What do you do when a cause you deeply cherish betrays you?

What do you do when you spend a lifetime fighting for the Palestinian cause, and then, overnight, it becomes associated with the butchering, beheading, raping and mutilating of 1400 people, including  infants, babies, women, rave dancers, families and the elderly?

How do you spin that?

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Richard Fernandez

Future economists will ask why land conflicts in MENA [Middle East North Africa] could not be settled by negotiation. The Coase Theorem states that under ideal conditions, parties can negotiate terms that accurately reflect the full costs and underlying values, resulting in the most efficient outcome.
But in a multi-religions region without a consensus on right and wrong and without clear standards of evidence, territorial disputes cannot easily be argued according to accepted law or facts. The historical remedy in such doubtful cases was “trial by combat”.
“Trial by combat (also wager of battle, trial by battle or judicial duel) was a method of Germanic law to settle accusations in the absence of witnesses or a confession in which two parties in dispute fought in single combat; the winner of the fight was proclaimed to be right.”
In cases where the court could not decide who was right, the contending parties could fight it out, in the belief that if no man knew who was innocent, God or the fortunes of war would decide. In way, war is trial by combat when the international order cannot enforce a decision.
MacArthur’s Japanese surrender speech: “We are gathered … to conclude a solemn agreement whereby Peace may be restored. The issues, involving divergent ideals and ideologies, have been determined on the battle fields of the world and hence are not for our discussion or debate.”
Because international diplomacy failed Israel and its enemies are resorting to war, to trial by combat, to settle the issue. This, alas, is how much of the world’s boundaries were drawn throughout history and we are no nearer replacing it than our caveman ancestors.

Allahu Akbar: It couldn’t happen here…

Admittedly, I grew up in the golden age for Jews in America. Anti-Semitism was muted; Jews were respected for their family values and love of education. In fact in past presidential elections, candidates delved deep into their genetic inheritances to divine a Jewish gene or two.

The existence of the modern state of Israel, a Jewish state but unequivocally also a democracy, gave Jews existential pride, a psychological homeland to which they could move if so desired, and a sense of protection and invincibility.

Globally, Jews stood taller. For those stuck in Jewish-unfriendly geographic locations, rescue if things turned really ugly, was a reality.

Israel’s creation – by necessity a warrior state – also morphed from a small agrarian economy to a leader in start-ups, high tech, and constant innovation. Moreover, its commitment to rule of law provides more legal rights for Arab citizens than those given in Arab states. Specifically, Israel gives property rights to Muslim second wives – a right unheard of on the Arab street where so many women are still viewed as chattel.

As Arab money and Arab propaganda gained traction in Democrat-run inner cities, in the prisons, and the mainstream (legacy) media, Israel’s truth of a progressive society, democracy, and an inherent military ideology of not harming civilian non-combatants, was muted and ultimately destroyed.

So, how did it come to pass that Israel is falsely compared to Apartheid South Africa or a “colonizer” and a false moral equivalency between Israelis and Palestinians is bruited about from American universities – especially the ivies?

The distortion of historic truth has been fueled by superior marketing by the United Nations, which is anti-Semitic and anti-American and by some African-Americans, who were assisted in their civil rights struggle by American Jews, but now feel their oppression is synonymous with that of the Palestinians. It also came from the university woke administrations and professors, along with the stark ignorance of our youth, and the larger population of Muslim converts and immigrants whose mantra is “Kill the Jews.”

All of the above have either not been educated about history in the area, or deliberately distort it. Some hate the Jews because Israel uncomfortably reminds them of their own failures, as George Gilder noted in his best-seller, The Israel Test.

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DOJ Announces Slew Of Charges Against Gal Luft, ‘Missing Witness’ Of Alleged Biden Corruption.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday announced a slew of charges against the “missing” Israeli professor Dr. Gal Luft, days after he laid out serious allegations against the Biden family.

Luft was charged with several offenses related to “willfully failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (‘FARA’), arms trafficking, Iranian sanctions violations, and making false statements to federal agents,” according to a press release from the agency.

Earlier in July, the New York Post obtained an exclusive 14-minute recording from Luft in which he claimed he was arrested in Cyprus in February to prevent him from testifying in front of the House Oversight Committee on the Biden family’s alleged ties to Chinese military intelligence. Luft also alleged the Biden family had an FBI mole who gave them the inside scoop on classified information that was then allegedly shared with their Chinese counterparts.

Luft claimed he brought the information to officials in the FBI in 2019 but alleged it was covered up, according to the video.

“I, who volunteered to inform the US government about a potential security breach and about compromising information about a man vying to be the next president, am now being hunted by the very same people who I informed — and may have to live on the run for the rest of my life,” Luft said in the video.

Luft fled Cyprus after being released on bail, according to the DOJ.

Tyrants is as Tyrants does

The Next Step: Brazil’s New Left Wing Government Threatens to Seize Guns Civilians Didn’t Register.

We cannot let our guard down. Unfortunately, the situation is not easy.

With Lula in power, we left a dream of freedom to move to a unique and exclusive defense of jobs, of people who invested in the arms sector. We are now talking about bailing out jobs

Jonathan Schmidt just made the deadline, arriving at Federal Police headquarters in the center of Rio de Janeiro with a travel bag carrying a golden pistol and seven rifles, one peeking out of the zipper.

“I’m in love with guns,” said Schmidt. “I’d have over 2,000 if the government allowed.”

He had already registered his firearms with the army, as required by law for sport shooters like him, but experts have cast doubt on the reliability of its database, and said lax oversight has allowed such guns to fall into criminal hands. Schmidt was adding his guns to the police registry Wednesday on the final day to comply with a decree by Brazil’s new left-wing president — or face confiscation.

Over four years in office, former President Jair Bolsonaro tried to convert a country with few weapons into one where firearm ownership and lack of regulation meant personal freedom.

Now, his successor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been moving to undo Bolsonaro’s pro-gun policies, and that started with requiring gun owners to register their weapons with police. After initial resistance, he started seeing success.

But more than 6,000 restricted-use guns previously registered with the army, and which include “assault rifles,” were not presented to police by the May 3 deadline, Justice Minister Flávio Dino told reporters Thursday. Those are likely to have been diverted to criminals, and are now targets for investigation and potential seizure, he said.

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Alec Baldwin Codefendant Gets 6 Months Probation on ‘Rust’ Weapons Charge

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A codefendant in the case against actor Alec Baldwin in the fatal 2021 shooting of a cinematographer on a movie set in New Mexico was convicted Friday of unsafe handling of a firearm and sentenced to six months of probation.

Safety coordinator and assistant director David Halls also must pay a $500 fine and complete a gun-safety course after agreeing to plead guilty to the charge related to the death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of the Western movie “Rust.”

Halls appeared briefly by video to waive his right to challenge the negligence charge, as state District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer approved terms of a plea agreement with prosecutors.

Defense attorney Lisa Torraco urged the court to not impose a prison sentence — the maximum possible penalty was 6 months behind bars — noting that Halls was “extremely traumatized and “rattled” with guilt.

Defenestration (getting tossed out a window) used to be a real political thing back in renaissance central Europe . Yeah, nothing to see here………

Head of Russian oil giant Lukoil dies after falling from hospital window, reports state media.

The chairman of Russian oil and gas giant Lukoil — which spoke out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — has died after falling out of a hospital window, state news agencies RIA Novosti and TASS reported Thursday.

KS native Gwen Baumgardner reports on refugee crisis from Ukraine

According to Foreign Policy Magazine, since the start of the war in Ukraine more than 2.3 million refugees have crossed the border into Poland, moving the country from 101st globally in the number of refugees hosted in 2021 to second place a bare three weeks later.

However, for one Kansas journalist, the refugee crisis spawned by the invasion is not just bare numbers on a page.

Gwen Baumgardner, Straight Arrow News

Former Kansas Journalist Gwen Baumgardner, a reporter for Straight Arrow News, was on the ground in Poland and western Ukraine and saw the human toll first hand.

“Just speaking to … especially the mothers, they have no idea if they will ever see their husbands again,” Baumgardner said in an exclusive interview with The Sentinel. “But their main priority is to take their kids to safety, which means going into a country where they have no resources.

“They cannot speak the language. They have no connections, but they are willing to do that for their family.”

Baumgardner said the “Ukrainian spirit” that is much-talked-about in the media is a real thing.

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Year-End Musings on COVID, Science, and Chainsaws

COVID-19 has provided a best-of-times, worst-of-times experience for expertise. The science has been spectacular, but discourse on that science has often been abysmal.

The same-year development, testing, and approval of vaccines was remarkable. The mRNA platform behind the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines could become the Swiss army knife of therapeutics. It’s already being mobilized against cancer and genetic illnesses.

I’m no virologist or geneticist, but experts I respect persuaded me of the vaccines’ safety and efficacy. I got jabbed as soon as possible and regret that others chose not to. I wear masks in some situations, and not others. I see people socially but avoid large crowds. I favored lockdowns and school closings in early 2020 but think they lingered too long. My guess is that jurisdictions focused on the most vulnerable populations (elderly, immunocompromised, etc.) will seem wiser in hindsight than those that applied draconian mitigation strategies over their entire populations.

I think I’m right on these things, though I recognize that future evidence might say otherwise. I’m grateful for the scientists who developed the vaccines but strive to maintain an open mind on all scientific matters, along with a sense of humility and a generous spirit toward those who disagree with me. A proper understanding of science demands no less.

The history of medicine offers ample reasons to avoid smug certitude which, unfortunately, is abundant on social and traditional media. Science is always about likelihood and never about certainty, though word apparently hasn’t reached Twitter and TV news.

Then there is the flagrantly political demeanor of so many COVID experts. I’m not at all prepared to say whether red states or blue states were wiser in their public policies. Too many confounding variables. I’ll make one exception, which is to say that the press and others besoiled themselves by relentlessly lionizing ex-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Today, few Democrats or Republicans quote his tweet from May 5, 2020: “Look at the data. Follow the science. Listen to the experts. … Be smart.”

Here’s why they shouldn’t. Science, like a chainsaw, is an exceedingly powerful and useful tool. But “follow the science” makes no more sense than “follow the chainsaw.” The chainsaw doesn’t know the safest way to cut a tree, and science—let alone some anthropomorphic vision of it—can’t weigh the tradeoffs between slowing COVID and shutting down schools and cancer surgeries.

Science informs individual and collective choices, which depend not only on those scientific findings but also on subjective preferences and one’s degree of confidence in those scientific findings. As for “listen to the experts,” Cuomo wrote the book on COVID expertise, and that book’s fall has been as spectacular as its author’s plummet.

Medical history is littered with experts who were spectacularly wrong. When Ignaz Semmelweis suggested that doctors employ antiseptic medical procedures (e.g., washing hands in maternity wards), medical experts were offended and conspired to destroy Semmelweis. When Stanley Prusiner suggested that misfolded proteins could cause mad cow disease and its human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, he was pilloried as a heretic—a pejorative that didn’t entirely vanish when he received a Nobel Prize for his work. As physicist Max Planck said, “Science progresses one funeral at a time.”

In October, novelist and essayist Ann Bauer wrote a poignant column, “I Have Been Through This Before,” on her discomfort with the parade of cocksure COVID experts issuing ever-changing diktats and pronouncements. When vaccines didn’t end the pandemic, she wrote, “doctors and officials blamed their audience of 3 billion for the disease. The more the cures failed, the greater the fault of the public.”

The title of her column referred to her personal experience as the mother of an autistic son born in the late 1980s. Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim had hypothesized that autism was caused by “refrigerator mothers” who failed to show their children sufficient love—a theory we now know to be nonsense. But for a time, Bettelheim’s ideas were gospel-truth, showering mothers of autistic children with guilt and opprobrium. Today, he is regarded as something of a charlatan, but back then, he was a pop icon and celebrity expert on television. One questioned Bettelheim at one’s own peril.

During the pandemic, yard signs have sprouted with the message, “Science Doesn’t Care What You Believe.” For what it’s worth, chainsaws don’t care what you believe, either.