When Being Right Isn’t Enough

O ver the weekend, the Department of Energy announced that its own investigation into the matter yielded the conclusion that Covid-19 was most probably released from the virology lab in Wuhan. I’m sure I had the same thought everyone else did: If we blindfold a kid and give him a stick to beat Anthony Fauci with, will the good doctor burst open and reveal nothing on the inside but thousands of doses of hydroxychloroquine?

Oh, just me?

In recent weeks there has been a barrage of news confirming that the libs were wrong, and the freak conservatives were right, at least on the important questions. Mask mandates are useless, all the evidence says. Natural immunity is just as protective as the vaccine, or more so, against serious Covid outcomes. And now another government agency admits that the lab leak probably did happen.

I suppose it’s some consolation to have late acknowledgement that we weren’t crazy during the last three years. But I can’t get those years back. Neither can my kids get those developmental hours back when they could have been taught by unmasked teachers.

Unfortunately, we’re so mad at Facebook, YouTube, and the libs for appending their stupid, wrong “fact checks” to our posts about these subjects that we’re neglecting the fact that China and everyone who funded the Wuhan lab should be held accountable for their negligence, which resulted in millions of early deaths, the destruction of millions of livelihoods, economic chaos, and civil strife.

Thirty-five months ago, I ventured a lightly held opinion on the lab-leak theory here.

If you scroll through the replies, you’ll see a great slice of historical opinion. A significant percentage of the responses ask if I think it emerged from Comet Ping Pong, a reference to the conspiratorial beliefs of Pizzagate.

The one lesson I’ve learned from the Covid era is that the truth simply doesn’t carry any weight against elite fads. Nobody in history except a handful of Nazis has ever been punished for articulating what was elite faddish opinion at the time. On this theory, skeptical conservatism is little more than evidence of social maladaptation. It’s a kind of declaration — foolish or vainly proud — that your views don’t matter to society. By the time vindication comes, the question no longer matters. All that remains is a faint memory that you were a “problem.”

The only people who benefit from being right about something are relentless self-promoters, flogging a Substack. Everyone who is wrong in all the right ways gets to write for the Atlantic and the New York Times.

So here is one other useless protest against fashionable opinion. In light of upcoming Supreme Court rulings on affirmative action in college admissions, I posit that there is no sector of American life that would like the results if elite shaping institutions such as Harvard or Yale chose our future leaders solely on the basis of “merit.” Least of all conservatives, who will quickly see their sons fall even further behind the academic achievements of their daughters.

Harvard and Yale will find a legal way to discriminate and cast the members of their institutions like a Hollywood film or a United Colors of Benetton ad, something you are not allowed to do with your business or golf club. Because Harvard and Yale believe in their missions, unlike the Augusta National Golf Club they will get away with racial and gender discrimination.

Having decided for the day that opinion-writing is a useless activity, only creating a record of one’s futile efforts to influence others — I resigned for the afternoon. It was the only snowfall of this winter. Like all other vindications, it came late this year. I drove the kids out to a hill with their snow tubes and watched them fall, splat, and laugh until their faces were red and their legs were sore.

After we got back, I dried out their boots on the printed columns of Thomas Friedman, Charles Blow, and Jennifer Rubin.