In the (Feb. 8) opinion section The Signal had Joshua Heath’s pleading, “Democratic Voice” dueling with Rob Kerchner’s scorn for lemmings masquerading as liberals. Incidentally, the story about the unwitting mass suicide of lemmings by jumping over a cliff is a myth, pure urban legend. Those lemmings didn’t commit suicide en masse — no living creature does that. They were actually chased and thrown off the cliff by filmmakers while shooting Walt Disney’s 1958 documentary, “White Wilderness.” Disney does have a knack for cruelty. All of their cartoons show animals and children suffering. Oh, but I digress. It’s so easy to do that in the opinion section, the very place for digression, right?
Lemmings aside, I could not agree more with Kerchner’s assertion that our situation with the pandemic is a classic case of the blind leading the blind. I once asked myself what I would wish for if I had just one wish. I decided to wish for people to stop following, to stop following anyone and anything. Just stop. Imagine a world populated by genuine, free-minded, independent-thinking, individuals.
But back to Joshua Heath’s call for our government to resort to measures that would make the U.S. look like Australia. Have you seen what’s going on in Australia? Their police are behaving like Nazi stormtroopers, descending on mask-less pregnant women with batons. That is not an exaggeration. I recently watched video of four Melbourne officers in riot gear taking down what appeared to be a senior citizen because she wasn’t wearing a mask in public. I once wrote, “What are you willing to sacrifice for what?” Can you answer that question in a way that doesn’t make you look like a “lemming”?
One picture evokes a myriad of differing opinions, doesn’t it, Mr. Heath? Why is that? Tell me. And, most importantly, who’s to say which is right and which is wrong? Do you know enough to make that call for the rest of us?
Arthur Saginian
Santa Clarita
