Your turn: Fauci, Pritzker and others should be held responsible for damage from COVID-19

Angry flames shot high into the night sky and black smoke billowed from the burning barn. Union soldiers dragged the paralyzed body of John Wilkes Booth out of the fire.

As he lay dying, Booth asked the soldiers to hold his hands up so he could see them. “Useless, useless,” he said before he died.

Booth's words came back to me in a report of the testimony of Anthony Fauci before a Congressional committee.

After four years, Fauci and the rest of the CDC are finally being questioned about the policies they forced on us during the coronavirus pandemic.

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Their answers are totally inadequate, and they should be held to account for the damage they inflicted on America through their dictatorial pronouncements.

Standing in line at a store recently, the floor still had some of those "please maintain six feet" signs that were everywhere during the pandemic.

In his testimony before Congress, Fauci admitted there was no science supporting that distancing requirement. Rather "it sort of just appeared."

The distancing was a minor inconvenience. Masking requirements were a bigger nuisance.

Early on, "experts" told us we shouldn't use them. Then, we should use them. Then they were required any time we went out in public.

Remember high school hoopsters running up and down the floor with those required masks under their chin? Or when we had to wear a mask when we stood up in a restaurant but not when we sat down? How about the family that was kicked of an airplane because their two-year old wouldn't wear a mask?

Now we have learned that most cloth masks are ineffective and even the N95 masks only work if you don't take them down. Once the seal around your mouth is broken, even those won't prevent transmission.

At the height of the hysteria, I was proud to wear a black mask with big white letters reading "this mask is useless." It was.

Some images which linger from the pandemic would be funny if they weren't so sad.

One is the estimable Dr. Fauci wearing not one but two masks and then pulling them both down to joke with some friends at a baseball game.

Another was Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wearing both a mask and a face shield when he arrived in the Philippines. Useless acts done only for COVID-19 theater.

Many leaders told us that vaccinations were the ultimate panacea. Now President Joe Biden said, "You're not going to get COVID-19 if you have these vaccinations."

He believed it so fervently that 3,400 members of the military received a less than honorable discharge for refusing to get jabbed.

Now, several studies reveal that the vaccine was not particularly effective and can have adverse side effects. An NBA player gave up a $100 million contract extension for refusing to be vaccinated. Do you think any "scientists" will lose their contracts for spreading misinformation?

Some policies were inconvenient, some were harmful, but some were unspeakably cruel.

Who can forget the images of a family standing outside the window of a nursing home as their loved one died alone and begging for them to come inside.

I don’t know any family who would not risk a bronchial infection to hold the hand of their dying grandmother. That was an atrocity committed by bureaucrats who loved power and had no mercy.

The most egregious atrocity committed in the name of Fauci science was keeping our children out of school, sometimes for a year and a half.

Dr. Fauci was abetted in this crime by the governors of several states including our own Jellybean Pritzker. They were so drunk with their authority that they deprived millions of children of their right to an education.

As we always knew, school children were the least likely people to get sick from the virus. Now, actual science is showing how seriously children were damaged by these martinets.

Yet, Gov. Pritzker was reelected by people who apparently didn't care if their children suffered irreparable harm from his capricious edicts.

Power-crazed government officials issued all kinds of ridiculous orders just because they could.

Remember when the unguinous Governor Newsom closed California's beaches because, heaven forbid, we don't want people enjoying sunshine and fresh air.

New York City removed 1,700 basketball hoops from public courts to save young athletes from themselves.

In Long Beach, dirt was poured in skateboard parks to be sure the little surfer dudes wouldn't have any place to burn off the excess energy that built up while staring at a computer screen all day.

The Fauci believers hid behind a shield of “science” and decried anyone who dared question them.

“Disinformation!” they screamed. “How dare you challenge our power!” Well. it’s time that they are held to account.

Their lust for power and control has done permanent damage to our country and they must be forced to admit their mistakes.

Will we see an apology or an admission? Don’t count on it. Just remember what they did the next time they ask us to do useless things simply because they say so.

Harry Bulkeley is a retired Knox County judge and a local historian.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Your turn: Pritzker, Fauci should be held accountable for their actions