Calls are going out advocating “pandemic amnesty” for those who put Americans through two years of COVID-19 shutdowns and mandates. But critics of the idea are saying things like accountability and apologies need to come before just “moving on.”
Brown University economist Emily Oster got the ball rolling this week with an article in The Atlantic entitled “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty.” Among her statements, Oster says:
“We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty. We can leave out the willful purveyors of actual misinformation while forgiving the hard calls that people had no choice but to make with imperfect knowledge.”
“Moving on is crucial now, because the pandemic created many problems that we still need to solve.”
“Let’s acknowledge that we made complicated choices in the face of deep uncertainty, and then try to work together to build back and move forward.”
But Oster wasn’t the first to allude to a “fresh start” approach. In July, Washington Post columnist Alyssa Rosenberg wrote that “it’s not useful to focus on what should have been done to help children,” adding: “the better question is what can we do for them now?”
Reaction to making a fresh start varies. For example, Bethany Mandel – a homeschooling mother of five and a widely published writer on politics, culture, and Judaism – argues a proper understanding of forgiveness is needed first.
“In the Jewish tradition, we talk a lot about the fact that the first thing that you need in order to forgive someone is for them to ask for forgiveness – and we have not had that request,” Mandel tells AFN. “We have not had anything resembling an admission that mistakes were made, that an apology is due to many millions of Americans – to children who lost out on school, to businesses that were closed, to the people who were unable to attend to their loved ones’ last moments or their funeral.
“The list goes on endlessly,” she laments, “and we’ve never had an acknowledgement from the powers that be that mistakes were made.”
For those who may not budge on whether they were wrong, Mandel says there is plenty of data. “We have the data on child deaths; we have the data on learning loss,” she explains. “There are a lot of numbers out there that indicate very clearly that very deep mistakes were made – and as far as the children go, we’re going to be watching ramifications of that for the rest of their lives, [maybe] for the next several decades.”
Read Mandel’s column: The case against pandemic amnesty
Can’t forget the Left’s ‘power grab’
Conservative activist Gary Bauer isn’t a big fan of the suggestion of an “amnesty” for those who put the country through the misery of shutdowns and mandates. Bauer, chairman of Campaign for Working Families, says the “power grab” during the pandemic – at both the federal and state levels – must not be forgotten.
“Our churches were closed because these leftist governors and members of Congress decided that the freedom of religion wasn’t essential, but abortion clinics were kept open,” he points out.
“We had first responders … and men and women in uniform who are our heroes who lost their jobs or were kicked out of the military because they raised religious objections to taking the vaccine. That was outrageous.”
Something, says Bauer, needs to be done to make up for what happened to those people.
“Look what was done to our children,” he cites for an example. “You had the big teachers’ union conspiring with the CDC and the Biden administration to keep our schools closed. Our children suffered from that, particularly minority children.
“So, before I forgive those teacher unions and forgive the CDC for what they did, we all should want accountability,” Bauer concludes.
Mandel is onboard with accountability. “… I don’t think we need to hold a grudge against the Anthony Faucis and the Lena Wens of the world,” she offers, “but they shouldn’t be in charge of what they were in charge of over the course of the pandemic because they showed their judgment so flawed that we don’t want them steering the ship if there is another iceberg.”
Still, Mandel says she admires Rosenberg and Oster. While she describes them both as “brilliant women who are really wonderful, good-hearted people,” she also views their suggested post-pandemic approach as “misguided … when we have not really done the work of apologizing and moving forward.”
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Copyright American Family News. Reprinted with permission.
Apology? Move on? How about jail time and multi million dollar fines? Forgive and forget? Never!
Maybe his community servce punishment will be to dress up like the Liberal lawn troll he actually is, and stand in the cold bushes of the Biden WHitehouse front lawn steps as an example of all those who use government lies to enrich themselves. There is plenty of room for the Biden family members as well, right next to their well planted political poison ivy, and well eaten Democrat Dingleberries.
I;d settle for public Floggings!
Yep, let’s give amnesty to Dr. Fauci, who funded gain of function research in a communist lab in Wuhan, that killed millions of people around the world and the gain of function research also destroyed economies all over the world. Boy, if Hitler hadn’t killed himself, we should have given that murderer amnesty, right “The Atlantic”? The liberal way of giving amnesty to criminals in our society, so they can kill the innocent people of our Country. What a disgrace liberals are. Liberals are a sewer cancer that metastasizes and as a result civil societies are destroyed by this liberal cancer.
Amnesty? BAD! These people used their government positions, some elected, some appointed, to pontificate and mandate rules and regulations far beyond the scope of what our Constitutional Republic’s intention. They did it willingly, suppressing scientific evidence contrary to political scenario they presented and used unethical methods to suspend free an open discussion on the subject. The results being: most critical being the fiasco of education which can never be made up, due mainly to the teachers’ unions unreasonable demands which were really unnecessary; businesses teetering on the brink of failure under ponderous and onorous regulations with some actually going defunct putting thousands out of work; the outright attack on religious freedom; the harm done to the family structure and human social interaction from social distancing. These are real problems that should not exist but do due to the current political ethics being practiced by out leaders!
Notice, when a conservative ‘buggers up, even if Unintentional, NO AMOUNT OF APOLOGIZING is ever enough for the left.
SO WHY THE HELL should we roll over and amnesty THEM!!!
forgiving the hard calls that people had no choice but to make with imperfect knowledge.”
Imperfect knowledge only because such as Fauci and the FDA and government and Big Tech caused the imperfect knowledge by censoring and silencing those with alternate knowledge that is. So stop lying that such as Fauci, the MSM, Big Tech and the totality of the Federal government were the cause of imperfect knowledge to begin with and therefore should be held accountable, not given “amnesty”.
Accountability and apologies? Go to Hell! People suffered, lost their jobs, lost their homes, lost their savings. By the thousands and thousands, people SUFFOCATED to death and were not allowed to say goodbye to their loved ones! Amnesty? Apologies? You evil people need to suffer. Throwing every one of you off a ten story building is a good start.
THING IS they have not even PROPERLY APOLOGIZED.. All they said was “WE were operating under imperfect knowledge”/…
THAT IS Not to me, an apology. AS they still didn’t acknowledge THEY MADE MISTAKES.
I’m not one bit surprised by this. Even though Falsi is a quack, an idiot, and a criminal. Much of what the gubment mandated was NOT supported by science and the COVID vaccine went through inadequate and sophomoric (at best) testing. And then to mandate jabbing children is totally, absolutely irresponsible. I also read an article that stated Falsi and his wife’s net worth increased $5 million during the pandemic. I think his back, savings, investment accounts should be investigated. I bet we will find many deposits from Big Pharma and foreign gubments. PUT HIM JAIL. NO AMNESTY.